Nietzsche

What are Personal Values?

Values are a set of standards you have for life. They are the things you believe are most important to the way you live, work, and play.

Some people would even say that values are priorities that show us how we should be spending our time throughout the day.

Values can also be described as labels you give to specific words. These words help represent your emotional experiences, which originate from states of pain and pleasure.

These emotional experiences are often organized into a hierarchy of sorts that helps outline your priorities for life, and for living that life.

Values are the measures you use to figure out whether or not your life is turning out the way you had imagined. Therefore, values act like a compass that helps you stay on track and focused on the most important things in your life.

All this is very important because, when what you do and how you behave is consistent with your values, then life feels good, and you feel good about yourself and life.

However, when what you do and how you behave is not aligned with your highest values (priorities for life), then that’s when discomfort and pain sets in.

In such instances, you feel unfulfilled, dissatisfied and perhaps even downright miserable. And what’s worse, is that you probably don’t even recognize why you’re feeling this way.

The Importance of Exploring Your Personal Values

The whole point of exploring your personal values is to help improve the results you get from the most critical areas of your life.

For this very reason, it’s absolutely crucial that you explore your personal values in meticulous detail.

An exploration of your personal values will help you live a more balanced life based on your highest priorities.

When you come to understand your personal values, you can use them to make better decisions throughout the day.

All this is, of course, extremely important given the fact that your values profoundly influence what you focus on, how you perceive reality, how you evaluate things and the behaviors you choose or choose not to indulge in each day.

Given all this, it would make sense to assume that if your values are not in sync with your daily choices, decisions, and actions, then you will tend to feel a little unfulfilled and dissatisfied with your life.

How Life Transition Impacts Our Values

It’s helpful to keep in mind that our values often change as we transition through various stages of life.

For instance, your values will be structured a certain way while pursuing your academic goals. During this period of your life, you might value the acquisition of knowledge above all else.

However, upon completion of your studies, you might value adventure above all other values. And, given your strong inclination for adventure, you decide to take a 12 month trip around the world.

12 months later you arrive home and transition into a career path. As a result, your values shift once again. Suddenly independence and financial security become a top priority.

Down the track, you might decide to start a family, and your values shift yet again. Money might, of course, still be a priority. However, love, comfort, security, and connection may also be on top of your value list.

Then, years later, when it comes time to retire, you might once again value adventure above all else. As a result, you decide to travel the world yet again and make the most of your retirement years.

Major unexpected life events can also significantly transform our values.

For instance, a close family member passing away can shift how you think about your life, your path, and how you feel about others. Moreover, it can change your priorities and how you choose to live your life.

Likewise, being involved in a major accident or going through significant emotional turmoil can also force you to rethink your values and priorities.

Events such as these can shift how you think about things — significantly altering your choices, decisions, and actions moving forward.

Keeping track of your values is a great way to stay in-tune with your deepest needs and desires.

What was once important, may not be important today. As a result, you must consciously alter your choices and decisions to align them with your highest values and priorities.

Failing to take these steps can leave you feeling vulnerable, dissatisfied and unfulfilled.

Why Some Values Never Change

There will, of course, be some values that will stay constant over a lifetime. These values may include health, happiness, loyalty, empathy, selflessness, love and other priorities.

These are the values that lie at the core of who you are. They are the values that determine how you live your life from the deepest recesses of your heart.

These values rarely change and are often ingrained in your psyche at a very young age.

You must take every opportunity to live life by your core values. But don’t forget to build supporting values that add a greater depth of balance, satisfaction, and fulfillment to your life.

Understanding Different Types of Values and How they Impact Our Lives

There are two types of values that are worth exploring. Both of these value types influence your daily choices and decisions in immeasurable ways.

The first set of values are known as moving-toward values, and the second set of values are known as moving-away values.

Moving-Toward Values: These are pleasure-inducing values. They are values (emotional states) that you find pleasurable and want to experience time and again. For instance, you might pursue love, passion, health, comfort, adventure, security, freedom, success, etc. These values make you feel good. However, they are not equal. And you will, therefore, pursue some of them at the expense of others, especially if value conflicts exist.

Moving-Away Values: These are pain-inducing values. They are values (emotional states) that you will do almost anything to avoid experiencing. For instance, you might avoid loneliness, humiliation, guilt, depression, frustration, anger, rejection, criticism, etc. All these are examples of intense states. And many times these states overpower our moving-toward values. And this is of particular importance when it comes to finding an ideal balance in life.

Say for instance you value honesty and integrity above other values. These two values naturally awaken a pleasurable response and are, therefore, part of your moving-toward value hierarchy. At the same time, you have rejection high up on your list of moving-away from values.

In this instance, let’s say that the pain of rejection is a greater motivating force than the pleasure you gain from being honest and showing integrity.

Given what we now know about you, what decision are you likely to make when confronted with the dilemma of whether or not to tell someone something that you know will likely cause them pain and lead to rejection?

You will, of course, choose to hold back this information because experiencing the pain of rejection is a stronger motivator then it is to tell this person the truth.

All of your moving-toward and moving-away values are constructed into a hierarchy of sorts that dictates the choices and decisions you will make each day.

On one side of the spectrum, you have a hierarchy of your moving-toward values. These are the things that bring you pleasure.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have a hierarchy of your moving-away values. These are the things that bring you pain.

Now, of course, you might not be consciously aware of this hierarchy of values. However, it’s certainly there. It’s evident in the decisions you make and the actions you take.

It’s essential to note that having two polar-opposite value hierarchies is entirely the norm. It’s a part of life. We will always tend to move toward certain things and away from other things. This is how we find the motivation to do what we do each day. However, this does become problematic when value conflicts exist.

For instance, a value conflict exists in our earlier example. You want to do one thing by telling this person the truth. However, you hold yourself back because of the potential pain of rejection you are likely to experience if this person found out the truth.

In an ideal world, there will be a balance and no conflicts. Also in a perfect world, you will naturally gravitate and make decisions based on your moving-toward values. This is, in fact, how extremely happy and fulfilled people live their lives.

Their moving-toward values are so sharp that all their choices and decisions run through this “pleasure-centered” value hierarchy. Yes, of course, they also have a moving-away value hierarchy. However, this pain-inducing hierarchy doesn’t significantly impact their daily choices and decisions.

To live life as these people do, you will need to commit yourself to developing your emotional coping skills. These emotional coping skills will help you to better handle all those pain-inducing values you’re afraid of experiencing.

Developing your emotional coping skills will, of course, take time. However, with a little effort, knowledge, and practice on your part, you will make progress in this area.

And as you make progress, you will subsequently begin to shift your preferences from the moving-away value hierarchy to the moving-toward value hierarchy.

There are Two More Types of Values that are Worth Exploring…

Let’s now focus on two more types of values that must be defined before jumping into the value transformation process.

Say for instance you value love, family, security, and money. These values can be categorized in two ways. The first is as a means-value, and the second is as an ends-value. Let’s take a look at the difference between the two value types:

Means Values: These are tangible values such as family and money. They are things you may want to have in your life.

Ends Values: These are emotional values such as love and security. They are the resulting emotional states you desire to experience.

Let’s say that for instance, one of your core values is family. This is great, but what you actually want and value comes down to LOVE.

Or, let’s say that another core value you have comes in the form of money. This is also okay, but what you actually want and value comes down to SECURITY and FREEDOM.

Your family gives you the love you desire, and the money you earn gives you the security and freedom you want.

Both value types are, of course, legitimate values. However, your ends-values are the only values worth exploring when it comes to building your value hierarchy.

Your ends-values are the things you actually want as a result of acquiring the tangible things that you think you want. You might, for instance, ask yourself:

What does family really mean to me?

What does family give me?

What does money really mean to me?

What does money give me?

In other words, look for the emotional states you are likely to experience as a result of acquiring these means-values.

All this is very helpful because when you get down to the core of what life is about, it always comes down to our emotional experiences.

It doesn’t really matter what we have, what we do, or who we become. All that matters are the emotional states we experience over a lifetime.

There are many rich, healthy people in a relationship who are absolutely miserable. And then there are many poor, single and sick people who are remarkably fulfilled living happy lives.

It all comes down to the emotional states we experience each day.

When it comes to life, it doesn’t matter what we have or don’t have, it’s rather how we feel about what we have or don’t have. And that, in essence, is the key to happiness.

Therefore, the lesson here is to always try to focus on your ends-values. They are after all the only values that matter.

How do We Create Our Personal Values?

As we already know, our values will often shift over a lifetime due to life transitions, significant emotional events, and other unexpected changes.

The changes in our lives are influenced by the pain and pleasure principle. In other words, they are controlled by what we move toward or push against.

Change can also happen as we collect references from our peers, from our environment, from society, and from personal experience. These references manifest as evidence of our experience that subsequently shapes our opinions, values, and beliefs.

In fact, references often form the building blocks of all your belief systems.

The more references you acquire about something, the more of an idea you will have about that “thing.” And the more idea you have about it, the more likely you are to form an opinion about it.

This, in turn, changes how you think and what you believe about this “thing.” And as your beliefs change, so do your, habits, behaviors, thoughts, and priorities.

Subsequently, all these changes influence your values, which likewise alters the choices and decisions you make each day.

If this process is still a little difficult to understand, then let’s break things down another way. Let’s look at how a “feeling” you have typically matures into a value.

In the beginning, you don’t even have any awareness of this “thing” (something in your life). You’re not ignorant, you’re simply not aware and haven’t given this “thing” any thought or consideration.

Suddenly though, something happens that shifts your attention onto this “thing.” You now start feeling something about this “thing” in your life. This forces you to think about this “thing,” and as you think about it, you begin forming an opinion about it.

This opinion strengthens as you reflect on this “thing” or talk about it with your family and friends. This process of communication with other people builds your references and further strengthens your opinion about this “thing.”

Eventually, you are forced to make a choice about this “thing” in your life. After the choice is made, you take action, and this “thing” now becomes a part of your value hierarchy.

This “thing” could inherently manifest as any of your values, and it’s something that’s occurring all of the time without our conscious awareness.

Yes, all this occurs mostly on an unconscious level of awareness. However, for those lucky few who understand how values are formed and how they shape their behavior and decisions — well, these people hold power to transform their life intentionally and with purpose.

Here’s How to Begin Eliciting Your Personal Values

Eliciting your values is worthwhile because it helps you ascertain what’s truly important in your life right now.

The moment you become aware of your unconscious priorities is the moment you can make the necessary adjustments to bring more balance and fulfillment to your life.

There are, of course, a number of ways you can begin eliciting your values.

You can, for instance, identify times when you were happiest, most proud or most fulfilled with your life. Thinking about these times will provide you with some valuable insights into what’s most important.

Eliciting your values in this way will give you a reasonably good idea of your priorities as they relate to your value hierarchy. However, for the purpose of our discussion, let’s begin with a slightly different approach.

Before jumping into the first step of this process, it’s imperative to mention that while working through your values that you keep in mind your Six Human Needs.

The need for certainty and uncertainty, the need for significance and connection, and the need for growth and contribution are pivotal here.

These six human needs form the building blocks of all your life experiences. As such, your values, and your value hierarchy must satisfy as many of these needs at the highest possible level — at all times.

If you successfully manage to do this, you will save yourself a great deal of work and effort finding that “life balance” you’re after.

We’ll, of course, explore this in more detail later on. For now. Let’s jump into the process of steps you can use to elicit your values.

Step 1: Discover What You Truly Value in Life

Your very first step is to get to the bottom of what it is you truly value in life.

The best way to do this is to ask yourself a specific set of questions that will help unlock your core values and priorities.

As you ask yourself these questions, be sure to keep your responses to a single word that encapsulates each answer.

Here are six essential questions to get you started:

What would I do if I only had six years to live?

What would I do if I only had six months to live?

What would I do if I only had six weeks to live?

What would I do if I only had six days to live?

What would I do if I only had six hours to live?

What would I do if I only had six minutes to live?

These set of questions are compelling as they begin with a long-term view of your life and priorities, and then progressively force you to take a shorter-term view of your life and priorities.

Your values will, of course, probably be very different with six years to live compared to having only six minutes to live. The difference, however, isn’t important.

What’s important here is that you outline how your priorities change moving from a long-term to a short-term view of your life.

Once you’ve identified these values, look for patterns, trends, and similarities. Ask yourself:

What values stand out?

What patterns am I seeing?

The purpose of these questions is to provide you with the insights you need to help you define your core values.

Another approach we could take is to explore the people you admire. Ask yourself:

Whom do I admire?

Why do I admire these people?

What values stand out?

The people you admire are of high significance here. You admire them because they have specific values and beliefs that are important to you and to your life.

As you gain a deeper understanding as to why you admire these people, this will provide you with interesting insights into your own values and desired emotional states.

A final question that’s worth asking revolves around how much you’re willing to sacrifice to live your values. Ask yourself:

How much am I willing to sacrifice to live my values?

Again, this is an important question because if you’re not willing to sacrifice to live your values, then these values are not really priorities in your life.

A real priority is something you will move heaven and earth for. They are the things you will fight for to make part of your life.

If you’re having trouble with this final question and can’t seem to wrap your head around the sacrifices you might need to make, then this could indicate that you have very strong conflicting moving-away values that are currently influencing your thoughts and behavior.

You will, of course, get an opportunity to work through these conflicts a little later on in this process.

For a comprehensive list of values you could use for this exercise, please take a look at this list of 400+ values.

Step 2: Piece Together Your Value Hierarchy

Let’s now piece together your value hierarchy for both your moving-toward and moving-away from values.

First, let’s look at your toward-values. These values tend to pull you toward the goals that you would like to achieve.

To piece together your moving-toward value hierarchy, ask yourself the following question:

What do I want most in life? What is truly important right now?

Remember that by asking this question you are searching for ends-values and not means-values. You must, therefore, turn any means-values you come up with into ends-values.

Do this by asking yourself:

What would this ultimately give me?

How will that make me feel?

Once you have successfully turned your means-values into ends-values, continue asking yourself:

Why is that important to me? Or…

Why is that feeling important for me?

What does this really mean to me?

How does this make me feel?

What causes me to feel this way?

Why is that important?

What’s next most important to me?

What you are attempting to do here is to isolate one core value. This core value manifests as a feeling or ultimate outcome that you would like to experience.

What you are mostly doing here is peeling back the skin of an onion. All the way back until you reach the core.

Cutting into the core of the onion releases a flood of emotions. And that’s where your core value lies.

Having gone through this questioning process, begin again and identify the very next value on your hierarchy. Then keep moving through these questions until you isolate 10 things that have most meaning in your life.

You are searching for 10 things that determine your priorities — that you would like to experience each day. They are your core values.

Now, move these values into an ordered hierarchy of importance. Make sure that the value at the top of your hierarchy is the value you cherish above all others. Ask yourself:

Which of these values is truly the most significant in my life right now?

If I could only experience one of these values, which value would it be?

Which value is the next most important that I absolutely cannot live without?

If while piecing together your value hierarchy you find words with similar meaning, then just combine them into one core value. For instance, achievement and success are two similar values that can be merged together in such a way.

Once you have established your value hierarchy, look at the list of values you have in front of you and ask yourself:

What kind of human being is this person?

How do they live their life?

What are some typical choices and decisions that they would make?

How would they prioritize their life and circumstances?

Do I feel comfortable being this person? Why? Why not?

Asking these questions will provide you with some fascinating insights into the kind of person you are likely to become if you live in accordance with this value hierarchy.

When you’re done, check to see if this hierarchy resonates with you. If it does, then lock away. However, if it doesn’t resonate with you, then make some changes until you’re comfortable with the order.

Remember that your values must support your beliefs, goals, life’s purpose, and above all else your six human needs. If there are inconsistencies, then you will struggle to find the balance you need to live life in optimal ways.

Step 3: Explore Your Moving-Away Values

Now let’s take a look at your moving-away values.

These values will either stop you in your tracks, or they’ll push you forward toward the attainment of your goals and objectives.

To identify these values and to build your moving-away value hierarchy, ask yourself:

What feelings do I seek to avoid most?

What don’t I want to ever experience?

What next will I seek to avoid most?

You will find examples of these values by cycling through all your negative emotional experiences.

Look to your past and have a think about all those incredibly painful emotional moments. They are often the things you rather not experience again.

These are all important moving-away values that may very well conflict with your moving-toward values. The greater clarity you have, the easier it will be to work through these conflicts at a later stage.

Step 4: Run an Ecology Check

The final step of this process involves running a quick ecology-check to make sure that your value hierarchy serves your best interests moving forward.

All these factors must align if your hierarchy of values is to serve your higher good. Ask yourself:

Does my moving-toward value hierarchy serve me well?

Does it align with the goals I would like to achieve?

Does it integrate into my life’s purpose?

Is it consistent with my beliefs and convictions?

Is it aligned with the kind of person I am seeking to become?

Does it satisfy all my six human needs at the highest possible level?

Does it create inner harmony, fulfillment, and peace?

Does it allow me to make better decisions?

What about my moving-away values? How do I feel about them?

Do any potential conflicts exist?

Have a think about your responses to these questions and evaluate whether or not your current value hierarchy conflicts with either your goals, life’s purpose, beliefs and/or six human needs.

If conflicts exist, then you will need to either change the order of your hierarchy of values, or you will need to make adjustments to your goals, purpose, and/or beliefs.

Unfortunately, your six human needs do not change. Your values must align with all six human needs for you to experience long-term fulfillment.

Finally, when it comes to your moving-away values, they’re ultimately not going anywhere. If they don’t cause any major conflicts, then you won’t need to make too many adjustments in these areas of your life.

However, if they do get in the way of your moving-toward values and this negatively impacts you, then you might need to make some adjustments to the psychological rules that govern your moving-away values. We’ll discuss this in detail in the next section.

How to Begin Transforming Your Personal Values

So why might you want to transform your personal values?

You might, for instance, adjust your personal values whenever you recognize that they’re pulling you off course.

For instance, your values might not be aligned with your goals or your life’s purpose. As a result, they’re leading you astray.

You might, for instance, experience conflicts or something might just seem to be amiss.

What’s missing is the foundational support your goals need from your values. You need this support to help you attain the long-term outcomes you would like to realize.

Let’s look at this another way. If you keep living out your current values, then you will continue to manifest the same results over and over again.Nothing will ever change. Things will just stay the same, and you will fail to make the progress you’ve been hoping for.

You must decide that enough is enough and that you will commit to a better path — a more consistent path that is congruent with your goals and aligned with the kind of person you would like to become.

It’s only when you change your value hierarchy and then consciously act on it, that is the moment when your decisions improve and your behaviors shift — ultimately transforming your results.

Clarify Your Goals

Before delving into this value transformation process, it’s crucial that you first gain some clarity about your life’s purpose and the kind of goals that you would like to achieve.

In addition to this, you must outline the kind of person that you are seeking to become. To help you out, here are several self-assessment questions:

What would I like to do and achieve in life?

What are my deepest passions?

What do I feel is my life’s purpose?

What kind of person do I seek to become as a result of fulfilling this purpose?

What goals would I like to achieve that are aligned with this purpose and with the kind of person I would like to become?

Which of these goals are most important to me right now? Why? Pick one or two goals.

Why do I want to achieve these goals?

What are my underlying reasons for achieving these goals?

The more clarity you have in these areas, the easier it will be to make the necessary adjustments to your value hierarchy.

Before moving on, it’s important to understand that if you fail to align all your energies with the achievement of your goals, then you will likewise fail to achieve your goals.

You have a limited window of opportunity. If you don’t grasp that opportunity now, you may never get that same opportunity again.

You might, for instance, want to earn more money to secure your financial future. However, if your values are not aligned with this goal, then you will continuously sabotage yourself and subsequently fail to reach your objectives.

Or, let’s say, for instance, you want to get married and raise a family. In such a scenario your values will need to shift accordingly. No longer will you value your career over your family or over love. Instead, your values must now support this new goal. Otherwise, conflicts will arise.

The primary reason why many marriages fall apart is that each partner has a different hierarchy of values that push them in opposite directions.

If your value hierarchy does not match your goals, then you will struggle to achieve them or at the very least hold onto them over the long-run.

The takeaway from this is to restructure your values whenever you pursue new goals or when your life changes in a significant way.

Don’t expect that what’s worked for you in the past will also work for you in exactly the same way in the present. You must change with the times, and that change begins with your values.

Identify Potential Conflicts

Having clarified your goals, it’s time now to explore potential conflicts that might exist within your value hierarchy.

It’s essential to identify conflicts that directly impact your life and the most important people in your life.

To begin working through this process, ask yourself:

What values do I truly desire to cultivate and live each day?

Which of these values are aligned with the goals I would like to achieve?

Which of these values are aligned with the type of person I would like to become?

Which of these values are aligned with my life’s purpose?

Which of these values are compatible with my relationship with my partner?

Which of these values are compatible with other important areas of my life?

What has to happen for me to live these values each day?

How could I begin this process starting today?

How must I organize my value hierarchy to ensure that there are no conflicts?

What values must be eliminated or moved down in my hierarchy?

What values must be added or moved to the top of my hierarchy?

In what order must I rank my values to clear the path to my goals?

What benefits does this order of values provide me with?

How will this restructuring process benefit me in the short and long-run?

If you come across conflicts, then you essentially have two options.

You can either change your values and eliminate these conflicts, or you can keep your values and choose a different path for your life. The choice is, of course, in your hands.

It is, however, important that you keep in mind all the short and long-term consequences of your decisions. Moreover, consider the impact that your decisions will have on the closest people in your life.

If after moving through these questions, you’re still struggling to let go of several conflicting values, then you might want to do some pain and pleasure work.

This involves associating pain with your current/unhelpful values to diminish their hold over your life. You might, for instance, ask yourself:

What is it costing me to hold onto my current values?

What will it cost me in the long-term?

What am I potentially likely to miss out on?

What kind of conflict will I continue to experience as a result of holding onto these values?

How will this affect me emotionally, spiritually, financially, physically, and socially, now and in the future?

The more pain you associate with the values you don’t want, the easier it will be to let them go. However, this process is far from easy.

It might take time to release these values, especially if you’ve been holding onto them for many years. Therefore, be patient with yourself and take your time with this process.

It’s not easy letting go of things that feel comfortable and familiar.However, what’s comfortable and familiar might not be in your best interests or serve your greater good right now.

How to Move Values Up or Down Your Hierarchy

It’s possible that while moving through this value transformation process that you struggled to move some of your values up or down your hierarchy. If this is true in your case, then there is something you can do that will help you work through this process far more effectively.

To move a value up your hierarchy, you will need to increase its emotional intensity. To move a value down your hierarchy, you will need to decrease its emotional intensity.

What this basically means is that you need to associate yourself emotionally with the values you want to move up and disassociate yourself emotionally from the values you want to bring down the hierarchy.

In other words, your emotional intensity (the feelings inside you) must be strongest for the values you are moving up, and they must be weakest for values you are moving down.

This seems relatively easy on the surface. However, it can get quite tricky at times. Nevertheless, there is something you can do, and it all depends on how you make use of submodalities.

Submodalities are the ways in which you interpret and then represent your world using your five senses. They are all about how you visualize things, how you hear things, and how you feel things internally.

Making adjustments to these submodalities can either increase your emotional intensity or decrease your emotional intensity.

As an example, in order to raise the emotional intensity of one of your values you would picture the value large and bright in your mind. You would see it moving and interacting with you, and you would hear the sounds that it makes, while also feeling its energy from all angles and perspectives.

On the other hand, to lower the emotional intensity of one of your other values you would see it as distant, dark and in black and white. There would be minimal movement, it would seem dull, and would feel cold and gloomy.

You can also successfully insert the submodalities of one of your highest values into a value that you would like to move up the hierarchy.

In such instances, you would first identify the kinds of submodalities that distinguish your highest value from all others. Then you would copy those same submodalities into the value that you would like to move up the hierarchy.

If you do this successfully, you will experience both values at the same level of emotional intensity.

Once completed, you could follow up this process with an anchoring exercise to permanently associate these feelings with your nervous system.

I have certainly not given any justice whatsoever to these two techniques. However, you will find some valuable information about submodalities here, and about anchoring here and here.

How to Remove Moving-Away From Value Conflicts

Your moving-toward value hierarchy might now seem in order, and you’re on your way to living a fantastic and fulfilling life. However, there is one little problem. You also have this other value hierarchy for your moving-away values. And this hierarchy could very well sabotage the progress you think you’re about to make.

Your moving-away from values are built upon things that you tend to avoid at all costs. For instance anger, frustration, rejection, criticism, judgment, and failure are all examples of things that you could potentially move away from.

As such, these are the things that will invariably influence the decisions you make and the actions you take.

You might, for instance, have a perfectly aligned moving-toward value hierarchy that is congruent with your goals and life’s purpose. However, as you make progress towards those goals, something always invariably happens — something that stops you in your tracks and prevents you from moving forward.

Yes, you guessed it. One of those moving-away values always gets in your way, and you unknowingly sabotage yourself. And there really isn’t a magic bullet that will help you overcome this conflict.

You could, of course, use submodalities and anchoring to reduce the pain that you associate with you moving-away values. This will, however, take some time and will require a little more research on your part to learn more about both techniques.

The other alternative is to simply change the rules of the game.

So how do we change the rules of the game? Well, changing the rules of the game means making your moving-away values hard to achieve, while at the same time making your moving-toward values easy to achieve.

Let’s say for instance that one of your moving-toward values is to find love. And so there you are one evening sitting at the pub when all of a sudden the human being of your dreams walks through the door.

What a great opportunity, right? Well, that’s what initially crosses your mind.

This could be the love of your life, and you are literally meters away from them. Why don’t you just go up and talk? Why don’t you just say hi? Or at least give them a little smile, or a wink, or something at least?

Does this sound familiar? You’re not taking action because you have conflicting values along both hierarchies.

On the one hand, you have LOVE at the top of your moving-toward value hierarchy. However, on the other hand, you have the Fear of Rejection on top of your moving-away value hierarchy.

Given what has just transpired, it appears as though the potential pain you will experience — based on your fear of rejection — is a greater motivator than your need for love.

Things obviously shouldn’t be this way. That’s not how you imagined your life when you laid out your moving-toward value hierarchy, is it? However, the reality is a little different than how we initially imagine things to be.

To overcome this challenge and eliminate this conflict, you will need to adjust your psychological rules to make the fear of rejection difficult to experience, and the desire for love easy to experience. To do this ask yourself:

What needs to happen for me to feel love?

What needs to happen for me to feel rejected?

How can I make the experience of love easier to attain?

How can I make the fear of rejection more difficult to experience?

You might, for instance, feel instant rejection the moment someone fails to make eye contact with you. Or how about the moment they ignore you? Or how about the moment someone tells you NO when you ask them out?

Is it practical to think this way? Will you ever find love if you continue to interpret rejection this way? The short answer is obviously NO!

Once you have completed this background work, your next step is to adjust your psychological rules for experiencing rejection. Make experiencing rejection as difficult as humanly possible.

Consider for a moment that high achievers experience a profound amount of rejection. However, they don’t allow this to faze them. Instead, they power on. They see rejection as an opportunity to learn and then try again another way.

Successful people simply don’t interpret rejection as a negative experience. They instead see it as a positive and helpful experience that helps get them closer to what they want in life. And that’s precisely how you must come to interpret things as well.

Concluding Thoughts

Having now worked through the value transformation process, you should now have an excellent understanding of what your personal values are about.

Not only have you built your value hierarchy, but you can now use this hierarchy to make important decisions in your life

No matter what surprises life throws your way, you will ultimately make optimal decisions that feel good, that are good for you, that are good for others, and that serve the greater good.

Say for instance something comes up and you need to make a significant life decision.

Initially, you might feel a little confused and conflicted. You’re just not sure what to do. However, you quickly realize that you have a value hierarchy in place. And so you turn to this list of values and ask yourself:

What would a person with these values choose to do in this situation?

And just like magic, you find your answer in your value hierarchy. And, what’s more, that answer will always be the right answer for where you are in your life right now.

Remember that your ultimate goal is to fulfill your highest values, without sacrificing them to the lower values along your hierarchy.

And now, finally that you have the necessary clarity of mind, it’s time to express your values in every decision you make and in every action you take. So take action and go forth and live your life with a real sense of purpose.

Time to Assimilate these Concepts

Did you gain value from this article? Would you like to keep these concepts at the forefront of your mind? If so, then you might like to download the accompanying mind map reference poster to your iPad, tablet or computer. The map presents you with a quick overview of this article. It’s designed specifically to help improve your memory and recall of this information so that you can better integrate these concepts into your daily thoughts, habits and actions. Your purchase will also go a long way towards supporting the further development of these maps.

Here are three recommended IQ Matrix mind map bundles that explore how to learn the fundamentals of life coaching, how to reprogram your mind and behavior, and how to find your life’s purpose.

If you enjoy using these mind maps, then why not become an IQ Matrix lifetime member where you will gain access to an ever-growing library of hundreds of self-growth mind maps that can help you excel in every area of life. Find out more by clicking on the banner below.

Gain More Knowledge…

Here are some additional links and resources that will help you learn more about this topic:

The Fear of Embarrassment IQ Matrix will help you to take control and eventually overcome the feelings of embarrassment you may experience in awkward situations. The article explores what it means to be embarrassed; highlights causes of embarrassment and it’s consequences; outlines step-by-step what to do before, during and after an embarrassing event.

Douglas Engelbart

The rate at which a person can mature is directly proportional to the embarrassment he can tolerate.

Is the Fear of Embarrassment Holding You Back From Being Your Very Best Self?

When we’re embarrassed we feel somewhat uneasy, ashamed, and kind of self-conscious. We feel this way because being embarrassed is somewhat of a forgotten fear that prevents us from reaching our full potential.

On the surface, we wouldn’t usually classify embarrassment as a fear. However, for the purpose of this discussion, it can be helpful to look at it in this context.

Embarrassment often manifests as a result of our insecurities. It manifests when a weakness or an inadequacy is suddenly made public.

You might also feel embarrassed because you’re feeling guilty about something you did that has now become public knowledge.

Likewise, you might end up feeling embarrassed when you’re caught doing something that is socially unacceptable. These events can often make us feel incredibly uncomfortable and self-conscious.

When hidden secrets are suddenly made public, that’s when embarrassment truly kicks in. As a result, you’re now open to judgment, ridicule, rejection, and criticism. All of a sudden, it seems as though embarrassment isn’t the only fear on your mind.

Some People Have Absolutely No Shame…

You’ve probably heard the saying that some people have absolutely no shame. These are the kind of people that don’t often concern themselves with what others think or say about them. In fact, these people never get embarrassed and are usually very open about every aspect of their lives.

These people don’t care about being rejected or criticized. In fact, they seem to relish the opportunity when others don’t approve of their decisions or behavior.

Other People are Riddled with Insecurity…

In contrast, a person who’s afraid of being embarrassed is often very insecure. They have extremely low self-esteem and tend to fear judgment, ridicule, and criticism.

These are the kinds of people who often try to please others. They try their hardest to live up to other people’s expectations of them. However, the problem is, they just don’t feel deserving.

Subsequently, these people fear to make mistakes and are petrified of failure. This naturally leads to hesitant action and indecision. And that is precisely when the fear of embarrassment manifests in their lives.

Suffering from the fear of embarrassment can actually be quite debilitating. It tends to stifle self-confidence while undermining social and personal growth.

People who fear embarrassment will rarely if ever step outside their comfort zones. Their comfort zone provides them with a sense of security and certainty. While the outside world presents uncertainty and potential pain.

Stop Getting Caught Up in the Perfectionist Trap!

The idea is that unless we do things perfectly, then we will never truly be good enough. And if we aren’t good enough, then obviously that makes us feel like a failure. And, we, of course, can’t accept that as part of our reality.

It’s important to understand that nobody is actually perfect. Perfection is only an opinion.What’s ideal for one person is far from perfect for another person.

The moment you lower your standards and expectations (making them more realistic and achievable) is the moment you begin ridding yourself of the fear of embarrassment.

With imperfection in mind, it’s helpful to remind ourselves that everyone makes mistakes. Mistakes are a part of life.

For this very reason, it’s crucial to allow yourself room to make mistakes and to ultimately fail at times. Everything that happens is merely a learning experience. And other people will often respect that.

We all know that nobody else is perfect. We all know that everyone makes mistakes. We all know that people fail at times. In fact, often while attempting new things, people fail more often then they succeed.

It’s the growth that we get from our failures and mistakes that makes all the difference in the end. It’s this growth that helps us gain the experience and self-confidence we need to do things better the next time around.

Make a Concerted Effort to Subdue Your Critical Voice!

When it comes to making mistakes, failing and feeling embarrassed, it’s important to understand that you’re always your own biggest critic.

You might think that other people will judge and criticize you. Yes, some people might, but most people probably won’t.

The majority of people will actually empathize with you. They will relate to what you’re going through because at one time or another they were in exactly your position or know someone who experienced something similar.

Yes, events and circumstances might’ve been somewhat different. However, we’re all human. We all make mistakes and get embarrassed at times. It’s just a part of life, and certainly not something that needs to affect you in a negative and limiting way.

Would it surprise you if I told you that the vast majority of people who will take the time to judge you don’t really care? In truth, they judge because judging distracts them from their own problems.

Yes, these people may judge, criticize, and give you their undivided concentration. However, the reality is that they’re already so absorbed in their own world and in their own problems that you’ll be lucky to get only a few moments of their focused attention.

With that in mind, it’s not actually other people who make you feel self-conscious, it’s rather your own critical voice that creates these problems.

Consider for a moment that what makes you feel embarrassed actually inspires and excites another person. Or, how about what makes you feel embarrassed actually challenges and motivates someone else.

Therefore, embarrassment isn’t so much what happens to you, but rather how you interpret what happens to you. And all this comes back to that critical miserable voice inside your head.

Prepare yourself to tune-out that critical voice. Only then will you move forward with a greater sense of confidence. Only then will you find the personal power you need override the fear of embarrassment.

What to do Before You Get Embarrassed

There are certain things you can do before you step into an uncomfortable situation where you might feel somewhat embarrassed or uncertain.

The guidelines that follow explore various things you can do to prepare yourself for those moments of potential embarrassment. Working through these guidelines will allow you to handle those awkward moments far more effectively.

At this stage, it’s mostly all about building your anti-embarrassment muscle. This muscle must be flexed and strengthened so that when you go out into the world, you can bear the brunt of the challenges that life throws your way.

First, Subdue Your Expectations

If your expectations leave you no room for making mistakes and for goofing things up a little, then you’re just setting yourself up for failure.

With that in mind, take a moment to subdue the expectations you have about yourself and the expectations you have for yourself in this particular situation. Ask yourself:

What are my expectations?

What expectations do I have of myself?

What expectations do I have of myself in this particular situation?

Are my expectations realistic and reasonable?

Do they allow me room to make mistakes?

How could I reasonably adjust my expectations?

Be open to the fact that you will make mistakes.

Mistakes are a healthy and natural part of life. It’s okay to goof up. As a matter a fact, you shouldn’t be embarrassed when things don’t turn out as expected. Everyone is fallible, and nobody is ever perfect no matter how they appear to be on the surface.

Just accept the fact that mistakes will be made. To do this, you will need to let go of your perfectionist nature. Tell yourself:

It’s okay that I’m not perfect…

It’s okay to make mistakes…

It’s perfectly okay to fail as long as I learn from the experience…

Get comfortable with being imperfect. Every mistake you make is nothing more than a learning experience that will help you get better the next time around.

Learn to Handle Fear in Optimal Ways

The fear of embarrassment is closely tied to the fear of uncertainty, rejection, and criticism. It could even be said that the fear of embarrassment is nothing more but a mashup of all three fears.

To overcome the fear of embarrassment, we must learn more about how to handle fear more effectively in our daily lives.

When you learn to handle these three fears successfully, you will feel far more confident when stepping into uncomfortable situations that might potentially embarrass you.

With that in mind, spend some time learning how to handle the following types of fear:

As you build your fear muscle, you will naturally gain more certainty. And with more certainty, you will develop added motivation and self-confidence, which will subsequently help you overcome your feelings of embarrassment.

Preparation and Attention to Detail

To overcome your feelings of embarrassment, it’s paramount that you focus on developing two critical things.

First, you must develop your mental alertness and awareness. This is important because while performing specific tasks and activities you will need to be mentally alert and aware of everything that is going on around you.

When you’re in this mindful mental state of awareness, you will be far more likely to change direction at a moments notice and respond to unexpected events and circumstances as they arise.

What this effectively means is that you’ll be less likely to get embarrassed.

There will essentially be no surprises as you’ll be mentally ready for everything and flexible enough to change your decisions, behavior, and actions at a moments notice.

Be mindful of the moment, and pay attention to how you’re doing and going about things. Also, be mindful of the results you get from doing these things and how this effects and influences the things around you.

The more thoroughly you prepare, the more confident and capable you will feel, and the less likely you’ll make mistakes and subsequently get embarrassed.

Be careful though not to get lost in the details. Don’t fall into the perfectionist trap. Prepare enough to understand what’s required to face the challenges that await you along your journey.

Examine Your Limiting Beliefs

It’s very possible that you succumb to feelings of embarrassment because you have limiting beliefs about specific situations, or about your ability to handle your emotions in those situations.

One way to overcome your limiting beliefs is to begin questioning the validity of each belief. Actually, spend time throwing doubts upon these beliefs by asking yourself:

What belief is causing me to feel embarrassed?

What do I believe about myself or about the situation I find myself in?

Is this a realistic belief to have?

What doesn’t make sense about this belief?

Where’s the evidence that disproves this belief?

Who could provide me with another perspective that could disprove this belief?

Gain other people’s perspectives and thoughts about your beliefs. Listen to what they say. You might be surprised at how they view things. Maybe your belief is not as legitimate as you initially made it out to be.

Work on Developing Your Self-Confidence

The more confidence you have in yourself and in your own ability, the less likely you are to succumb to all types of fear including embarrassment, criticism, rejection, making mistakes, and failure.

Confident people don’t typically fall prey to embarrassment because they feel comfortable in their own skin.

Their confidence encourages them to take risks, to step outside their comfort zone, to expand their horizons, and stretch themselves in various ways.

Confidence, of course, comes through knowledge and experience. In fact, the more knowledge and experience you gain, the more confident you will feel about yourself and about your circumstances.

There is, however, no miracle cure for building your self-confidence. It primarily comes down to a process of trial and error.

Self-confidence, of course, comes from making mistakes. More specifically, it comes from learning from those mistakes. In other words, it comes from gaining the necessary knowledge and experience you need to figure things out.

Initially, you might not know what to do. However, over time you learn and grow from your experience. This subsequently provides you with the confidence you need to move forward successfully.

Purposefully Put Yourself in Uncomfortable Situations

To strengthen your self-confidence and to build your anti-embarrassment muscle you must purposefully put yourself in uncomfortable situations.

An uncomfortable situation is something that naturally makes you feel somewhat uneasy and awkward.

Of course, initially, it’s important to refrain from these types of experimentations when it comes to the things that matter most. Instead, at first, experiment with less significant aspects of your life.

For instance, how about participating in a new sport you haven’t played before. Initially, you probably won’t be very good, but who really cares? You’ll make mistakes, embarrass yourself, laugh it off and have some fun.

Nobody cares, and you shouldn’t care either. Use this experience to build your anti-embarrassment muscle. Then next week, challenge yourself in another new way.

Hopefully, over time you will come to understand that embarrassment is just a little bit of fun. It’s a learning experience. Everyone gets embarrassed, and it’s not really a big deal.

Visualize Yourself Handling Embarrassing Situations

Did you know that the subconscious mind can’t tell the difference between something real and something imagined?

This is, of course, significant as it means that you can now work through embarrassing moments first in your imagination before tackling them in the real world.

In fact, the more you visualize yourself successfully and calmly handling an embarrassing moment in your imagination, the more confidence you will have to tackle this situation in the real world.

Take time to sit in a quiet place and close your eyes. Visualize all the events and circumstances surrounding this activity you have in mind. Actually, see things playing out in your favor. At least initially.

Within this awkward moment, your emotions could very easily and quickly get out of control. However, you calmly center yourself, subdue your emotions and laugh things off.

You bring a light-hearted nature into everything you do, and as a result, it’s very difficult for you to feel embarrassed.

Prepare for Future Embarrassing Scenarios

Moving on from the previous point, take time to reflect on all the ways you’ve suffered from the fear of embarrassment.

Have a good think about the specific situations that have made you feel uneasy. Within these situations are lessons you must learn that may very well help you in the present moment.

Also, consider all the things you might potentially feel embarrassed about in the future. Ask yourself:

What could potentially embarrass me in the future?

How will I respond during these moments?

How must I prepare myself to successfully and calmly handle these circumstances?

Moving through this visualization process will help you gain the self-confidence you need to make better decisions when things unexpectedly don’t go your way.

And when it eventually comes time to do the “real thing” in the “real world,” you will be ready for anything that life throws your way. Mental preparation is, of course, the key.

What to do During Moments of Embarrassment

Okay, so you’ve done all this prior work in an effort to strengthen your anti-embarrassment muscle. In fact, you feel ready and revved up to tackle anything that the world throws your way. Your confidence is at an all-time high.

And you should be confident. You’ve learned how to handle different types of fears, you’ve subdued your expectations, worked on developing your self-confidence, spent time visualizing how to handle embarrassing moments, and even purposefully put yourself into uncomfortable and potentially embarrassing situations.

Everything you’ve done up to this stage has helped prepare you mentally and emotionally for what’s to come.

However, now you’re suddenly faced with the real thing. Something’s happened, which has created uncertainty and you’re on the verge of one of the most embarrassing moments of your life. What to do?

Here are several guidelines to help you handle the fear of embarrassment when it surprises you unexpectedly.

First, Stay Cool, Calm, and Collected

The most important things you must do is stay cool, calm and collected. Take several deep breaths, count backward from ten and settle yourself down by tuning into the present moment.

Within these critical few moments become mindful of where you are, what you’re doing, and of your immediate surroundings.

Don’t regret the past or worry about the future. Just settle in the present moment.

When you become aware of the moment, you will no longer think about other people or about what you’re feeling embarrassed about. Instead, you will be focused on yourself and on the peaceful sound of your breath.

Take Immediate Responsibility

Don’t deny what happened — don’t try to hide behind your flaws and mistakes. Just take responsibility for what you did and for what transpired.

It doesn’t even matter whose fault it is. You’re in this situation, and you must now gracefully work through your predicament to the best of your ability. Blaming, chucking a tantrum or shamelessly walking away will be of no help.

If you made a mistake, own up to it.If something unexpected happened that made you feel uncomfortable, then embrace these circumstances.

You can’t change what happened. However, you can most certainly begin anew right at this very moment.

Think Positively and Creatively

Yes, of course, you might be in a bit of a pickle at the moment. Things are uncomfortable, awkward, and you’re already feeling somewhat embarrassed.

It’s important not to allow your emotions to get the better of you. Given this, it’s critical that you think positively. Ask yourself:

Are things really as bad as I make them out to be?

What if I put a positive spin on the situation?

What if this is an incredible opportunity in disguise?

Staying optimistic and viewing the situation in a positive light will immediately open a world of possibilities. No longer will you be the victim of circumstance. Instead, you will become the master of your own destiny.

Once you feel you’re emotionally in control, begin thinking creatively about how to get through this situation successfully.

You can, for instance, do this by envisioning yourself as a comedian on stage entertaining people. A comedian makes mistakes, goofs up and gets their audience laughing. Just maybe, you need to laugh at yourself to ease the tension.

But if that’s not appropriate in your situation, then you could imagine yourself as an actor acting out a role in a movie. Envisioning yourself as an actor might help desensitize you from your predicament.

Finally, how about imagining yourself as a cartoon character? What would Homer Simpson do in your situation? Actually, maybe that’s not such a great example.

Don’t Succumb to Peer Expectations

Other people are entitled to have their own opinions and viewpoints. They are even free to expect certain things from you.

However, this doesn’t mean that you must put external pressure on yourself to meet other people’s expectations. Instead, clarify your own expectations, live up to your own standards, and do things at your own pace and in your own way.

Don’t Retaliate Defensively

If you’re criticized, laughed at or judged, it’s crucial you don’t retaliate negatively or defensively.

Don’t blame other people for what happened. Don’t lash out angrily. Emotional outbursts will only aggravate the situation leading to regret and further embarrassment.

Instead, control your emotional responses, be open to the possibilities, and take responsibility for keeping a cool head.

Don’t Focus on the Embarrassing Circumstances

Once the embarrassing moment has passed, just move on with what you need to do.

There’s no point dwelling on things. You probably have better things to do, and you also have the rest of your life to live.

Don’t allow this one moment to ruin the rest of your day, your week or even the remainder of this year. It’s not worth it.

Accept what happened, learn from this experience, but don’t obsess yourself with endless regrets and “what if” scenarios. This is never helpful and will just affect other areas of your life in adverse ways.

What to do After You’ve Been Embarrassed

Yes, finally, the moment of embarrassment has passed. You’re out in the clear and can move on with your life. Well, at least that’s how one would imagine things would unfold. However, that isn’t always the case.

Many people continue to relive their embarrassing moments in their imaginations for days, weeks, months and sometimes even years. In fact, some people never seem to get over the shame and embarrassment they felt in that moment.

People get so caught up emotionally in these sorts of things that they end up developing horrible phobias that make life unbearably difficult in certain situations.

These phobias, however, don’t only affect them in specific situations, they also tend to expand into other areas of their lives ruining their relationships, career prospects, and health.

Living with the fear of embarrassment is never helpful. It can actually be quite debilitating and hurtful in the long-run.

What happened, happened. You either dealt with the situation successfully and calmly, or you didn’t.

Nothing can be changed. At least nothing can be changed in the past. However, you can certainly learn from your experience and use it as a platform to lay down a stronger foundation for the future.

So whether you thoroughly embarrassed yourself or successfully managed to work through an embarrassing situation, you will hopefully find the following guidelines of value.

First, Forgive Yourself

No matter what happened, no matter how you responded, and no matter what ended up transpiring, it’s essential that you forgive yourself and walk away with no regrets.

Only through forgiveness do you have any chance of moving on with your life.

Holding onto pain and regret will only prevent you from moving forward. Living with regret doesn’t help anyone feel better in the long-term.

Stop Apologizing for Your Mistakes

It’s important to keep reminding yourself that you’re imperfectly perfect. And that’s okay. Perfection is after all in the eye of the beholder. What looks like perfection for one person is far from perfect for another person.

Immediately, stop apologizing for your mistakes. Instead, embrace your mistakes. Mistakes are powerful learning tools you can use to make better choices and decisions in the future.

Create a Mental Distraction

Initially, it might seem difficult to get the embarrassing events out of your head. In fact, it’s very possible that you’re actually blowing these events out of proportion in your imagination. And that’s perfectly okay and understandable.

In such instances, give yourself permission to distract yourself temporarily from these unhelpful thoughts. This will provide you with a bit of time to later reflect on what happened and learn from your experience.

The most important thing is not to allow these embarrassing circumstances to eat away at other areas of your life.

There are, of course, numerous harmless ways you can temporarily distract yourself from these unhelpful thoughts. For instance, you can distract yourself through exercise, by socializing or listening to your favorite uplifting music, etc.

It’s important to keep in mind though that these are only temporary distractions that give you time to settle yourself down.

Once you’ve settled yourself down, it’s critical that you take time to think about what just happened and assess the situation. The more you can learn from this experience, the better you will do in the future.

As a side note, it’s necessary not to indulge in addictions as a form of distraction. These types of distractions will often interfere with critical areas of your life and can actually complicate matters even further.

Take Time to Contemplate

Take a moment to think about the events that transpired that led to the moment of embarrassment. Ask yourself:

What happened?

How did I respond to what happened?

Was I careless or simply unprepared? Why?

What was funny about the situation?

What can I learn from this experience?

What will I do differently the next time around?

Now, consider for a moment whether you were merely careless or just unprepared. A lack of preparation and carelessness might very well have been the cause of your embarrassment.

If you were unprepared, then you might need to prepare more thoroughly the next time around. That way you will have a clearer understanding of what you need to do.

If on the other hand, you were careless, then challenge yourself to become more aware, focused and mindful of the moment.

Either way, you’re encouraging yourself to think more thoughtfully about your circumstances, and this can only help build your self-confidence moving forward.

Seek a Different Perspective on the Situation

So far you’ve probably only viewed your embarrassing situation from one perspective, which is your perspective. However, consider the possibility that there are some different ways you could potentially view this embarrassing moment. Ask yourself:

How else could I view this situation?

How could seeing things this way be of value?

Just maybe, seeing things as an experiment or as a performance of sorts may help shift your perspective of the situation. It doesn’t even matter if these viewpoints make no sense.

Just maybe, seeing things in a slightly different light will open up the possibility that things are not as bad as they initially seemed to be.

This new perspective can subsequently provide you with the hope you need to approach the situation more confidently the next time around.

Gain Inspiration from Others

If you’re stuck on ideas and unable to find new and helpful perspectives to help you reconstruct your embarrassing moment, then it can be beneficial to have a chat with other people.

Find a trusted friend and share your embarrassing moment with them. Let them have a little bit of a chuckle, and please don’t hesitate to share in their laughter. This might very well help you relax and settle down your runaway thoughts.

Once the initial laughter dies down, ask your friend to share their own embarrassing stories. Just maybe, there are some valuable lessons within their experience that you could potentially use to feel better about your own experience.

We always seem to learn best through stories. When you share stories of your own life experiences with others, you learn from the act of sharing and listening to other people’s perspectives and opinions.

And when others share stories with you, you also learn as you try and put yourself in their shoes — living through their experience in your own way.

In the end, you take the lessons and try to apply them to your own life. That’s how we learn. And that’s how you must learn to overcome your fear of embarrassment.

Concluding Thoughts

So, there you have it. That’s the essential guide you need to overcome your fear of embarrassment.

You now know exactly how to prepare yourself for potential embarrassment, how to deal with embarrassment in the moment, and how to learn from your experience to avoid the pitfalls of future embarrassment.

You essentially have a 360 degree understanding of what it takes to overcome your fear of embarrassment. And now, it’s time to put these ideas into action.

Start with your imagination. Imagine successfully handling embarrassing situations in your head before you experience them in the real world. Then commit yourself to purposefully putting yourself in awkward and uncomfortable situations each day.

That’s, after all, the most effective way to strengthen your anti-embarrassment muscle.

However, like with all muscles, they don’t just suddenly strengthen overnight. It takes consistent work over an extended period of time to build your muscles. Which is why you must commit to the consistent application of these ideas.

Only through consistent application will you develop the mental and emotional strength you need to conquer your fear of embarrassment.

Time to Assimilate these Concepts

Did you gain value from this article? Would you like to keep these concepts at the forefront of your mind? If so, then you might like to download the accompanying mind map reference poster to your iPad, tablet or computer. The map presents you with a quick overview of this article. It’s designed specifically to help improve your memory and recall of this information so that you can better integrate these concepts into your daily thoughts, habits and actions. Your purchase will also go a long way towards supporting the further development of these maps.

Here are three recommended IQ Matrix mind map bundles that can help you develop more your self-confidence, improve your emotional intelligence, and help you deal with socially awkward situations.

If you enjoy using these mind maps, then why not become an IQ Matrix lifetime member where you will gain access to an ever-growing library of hundreds of self-growth mind maps that can help you excel in every area of life. Find out more by clicking on the banner below.

Gain More Knowledge…

Here are some additional links and resources that will help you learn more about this topic:

]]>https://blog.iqmatrix.com/overcome-embarrassmentWhat Exactly is a Self-Concept and How Does it Impact Your Life?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IQmatrix/~3/N2zgyMuhbAU/self-concept
Sat, 03 Feb 2018 00:40:15 +0000https://blog.iqmatrix.com/?p=7607

The Self-Concept Transformation IQ Matrix will help you to become more self-aware of your psychology, while at the same time raising your confidence and self-esteem. The article explores the makeup of a self-concept; discusses the impact that a self-concept has on our lives; presents the deadly symptoms of a low self-concept, and outlines several self-concept transformation strategies.

What Exactly is a Self-Concept?

A self-concept is an understanding you have of yourself that’s based on your personal experiences, body image, your thoughts, and how you tend to label yourself in various situations.

A self-concept can also be defined as an all-encompassing awareness you had of yourself in the past; the awareness you have of yourself in the present, and the expectations you have of yourself at a future time.

Your self-concept is built upon perception — upon how you perceive yourself based on the knowledge you have gained over a lifetime of experience.

When it comes down to it, a self-concept is a perception you have of your image, abilities, and in some ways a perception of your own individual uniqueness.

This perception you have of yourself is based on the information you have gathered about your values, life roles, goals, skills, and abilities over time.

Your self-concept is somewhat a collection of beliefs you have about your own nature, qualities, and behavior. It’s about how you think and evaluate yourself at any given moment in time.

But to truly understand what a self-concept is and its impact on your life, we first need to break down the three components of a self-concept. These three components are based on the work of Humanist Psychologist Carl Rogers.

Your Self Image

Your self-image comes down to how you see yourself in the present moment. This includes the labels you give yourself about your personality and the beliefs you have about how the external world perceives you.

It’s, however, important to note that your self-image isn’t necessarily based on reality. For instance, a person with anorexia may have a self-image that makes them believe they are obese, however, in reality, that is far from the truth.

Given this, it’s crucial to recognize that a self-image is only your own perception of yourself and has no real basis in reality.

Your Self-Ideal

Your self-ideal is how you wish you could be at a future time. This is your ideal self or the ideal person you envision of being and becoming.

Many times, how people see themselves and how they would like to see themselves doesn’t quite match up. And this is precisely what causes problems and often leads to self-sabotaging behavior patterns and emotional struggles.

Your Self-Esteem

Your self-esteem encompasses your current emotional experiences. Moreover, it refers to the extent to which you like or approve of yourself or the extent to which you value yourself.

You might, for instance, have a positive or negative view of yourself. When you have a negative picture of yourself, you are seen as having low self-esteem. This often manifests in a lack of confidence and pessimism.

On the other hand, when you have a favourable view of yourself you are seen as having high self-esteem. This often manifests in a confident disposition, self-acceptance, and optimism.

A healthy self-concept will help you to get ahead in life. It will allow you to maximize your potential and get the most from your strengths, talents, and abilities.

On the other hand, a weak self-concept will hinder your progress. In fact, a fragile self-concept will most likely lead to self-sabotaging behavior. As a result, you will struggle to follow through with your actions. Subsequently, you will fail to achieve the goals and objectives you set for yourself.

The Value of a Healthy Self-Concept

The value of having a healthy self-concept becomes more evident when we recognize how much it influences our ability to manage our emotional experiences. However, it doesn’t stop there.

A healthy self-concept impacts the questions you typically ask yourself each day, and it affects how you interact with people, how you think about yourself, others, and circumstances.

Putting all this together, your self-concept effectively determines what you will do or choose not to do at any given moment in time.It, therefore, influences your inherent potential to do, be, have and achieve your desired objectives.

The Forces Influencing Your Self-Concept

There are a number of forces that shape your self-concept and, therefore, impact its health and vitality over time.

Some of these forces come from internal sources, while other forces come from external sources.

Internal sources include what you think about yourself and/or others, what you pay attention to, how you interpret the events and circumstances of your life, and how you reframe both failure and success.

External sources include the environment you spend most of your time in, your interactions with others, and how other people tend to label you.

The most important thing to note here is the impact that other people have on your self-concept.

Through rejection, judgment, ridicule, and criticism, other people often influence how you feel about yourself, the labels you give yourself, and fundamentally what you believe about yourself, about your own abilities, and the world around you.

In many ways, your self-worth is tied to the people in your life. Therefore, if you’re struggling with an unhealthy self-concept, then it could very well be a direct result of the interactions you have with other people.

The bad news is that all of these internal and external sources have a profound impact on your self-concept. The good news is that starting today, you can begin taking affirmative and proactive action to improve your self-concept and optimize how you live your life.

Telltale Signs that You Have an Unhealthy Self-Concept

An unhealthy self-concept is something that often drags us down in life. It’s something that limits your opportunities, denies you access to essential resources, and undermines your potential.

An unhealthy self-concept implies that you have a low value of yourself. And when we have a low value of ourselves we typically lack the confidence needed to move boldly in the direction of our goals.

Life rapidly gets overwhelming and difficult to bear. You struggle with your emotions and make poor decisions. Everything essentially becomes a struggle. And things really shouldn’t be this way.

Your unhealthy self-concept is getting in the way of living your life to your best potential. It’s filtering out the reality of how life is and creating an alternate reality that you have unfortunately accepted as the truth.

What’s more, is that we become so caught up in our own lives, that it’s difficult to pinpoint whether or not we’re actually struggling with a weak self-concept.

There are, however, specific signs to look out for that can help you identify whether or not you’re struggling with a weak self-concept. For instance, you likely have a weak self-concept when you…

Taken individually these symptoms don’t signify that you have a poor self-concept. However, if you’ve ticked 3 or 4 items off this list, then that’s probably a clear indication that your self-concept has taken a hit.

If you have a low self-concept, then it’s time to commit yourself to upgrading your thoughts, beliefs, decisions, and actions moving forward. Only in this way will you transform your self-concept and optimize how you live your life.

Given all this, it’s, however, important to note that all these signs are nothing more than defensive mechanisms that protect you from emotional harm.

Your body and mind are doing their best to cope with life, events, and circumstances. However, frequently these coping strategies don’t quite work to your advantage.

What’s worse is that you might succumb to indulging in limiting behaviors in a feeble attempt to feel better about yourself. You might for instance:

Shift into “denial mode” and deny that anything is wrong despite evidence to the contrary.

Make assumptions and/or justifications that aren’t based on fact but rather on your biased “rose-colored” view of reality.

Launch into a verbal barrage where you attack yourself and others based on false perceptions of how you see things.

Choose to bask in negativity. Life sucks as it is, so why not just wallow in self-pity and experience the full brunt of your negative feelings?

Try and avoid people and circumstances by distracting yourself with addictions and other unhealthy habitual behaviors.

All of these semi-coping strategies might provide you with some semblance of control. They may even provide you with some relief and temporary satisfaction. However, in the long-run, they will only hurt you. You will hurt because you struggle to face the reality of your situation.

You’re incapable of facing the truth. And without the truth, you won’t make the necessary changes that will transform your self-concept and help you take charge of your life.

How to Improve Your Self-Concept

Transforming your self-concept won’t be easy. In fact, it will take a great deal of patience, time, and effort.

Along this journey, you will likely need to release old habits, limiting beliefs, and unhelpful thoughts. You will essentially need to question the value of how you’ve been living your life, which includes the choices and decisions you’ve been making.

If the choices you make are not stretching your comfort zone and pushing you toward your goals then change is something that needs to be on the horizon.

Even though this journey and the inevitable transformation will not be easy, it will, however, be worth your while.

No longer will you be at the mercy of your rose-colored view of reality. Instead, you will have taken control. And with control comes confidence. And with confidence comes personal power — the power to transform your life with purpose.

Before moving on, it’s important to note that the quality of your life is a direct reflection of your emotional state of mind. What this means is that when your emotions are healthy and serving your greater good, then the quality of your life will likewise improve.

Your life improves because life always comes down to the emotional experiences we choose to indulge in.

When our emotional experiences are of a healthy and positive nature, this improves the quality of our thoughts. And as our thoughts improve so do our choices, decisions, and actions.

When you make better choices, you get better results. And with improved outcomes, you feel immeasurably better about yourself. And when you feel better about yourself, your self-concept grows stronger.

That is, in essence, the key that will help transform a poor self-concept into something that can help optimize how you live the rest of your life.

Step 1: Make a Personal Contract

Before you begin working through these suggestions, it’s imperative that the very first thing you do is make a personal contract.

Write up a contract that gives you the green light to initiate the process of change. Acknowledge that:

Things must change…

I am responsible for this change…

I am committed to making this change…

If for any reason you’re unable to tick-off all three boxes, then you’re just not ready yet to instigate change. Let’s look at this in a little more detail.

Your first step is to acknowledge that changes need to be made. If you’re unable to admit that there is something wrong, then there’s no point moving forward with this process.

Secondly, you need to take responsibility for making these changes. Nobody is responsible for your life but YOU. Without YOU this can’t be done.

You must, therefore, take the responsibility on your shoulders that you, and you alone, are responsible for making these changes.

Without commitment, there is no motivation. And without motivation, there just aren’t enough reasons for you to instigate change — which is mostly where things fall apart.

You, therefore, need to acknowledge that things must change, you need to take responsibility for this change, and you need to commit yourself to follow through with the change.

Once you’ve ticked all three of these boxes, you’ll be ready to take the first step along your journey toward a healthier self-concept.

Step 2: Discover Who You Are then Bridge the Gap!

Your next step to transforming your self-concept is to discover who you are.

Now, on the surface, this might seem kind of silly. You already know who you are, right? You’re YOU! You’re a physical being living a life that’s uniquely yours. However, below the surface, you are in reality so much more than that.

So, my question is, do you honestly know who you really are?

What you’re going to try and do here is identify the gap between “who you are” and “who you’re seeking to become.”

To strengthen your self-concept, you must figure out how to bridge this gap successfully.

You must essentially merge the YOU in the NOW together with the YOU in the FUTURE.

This, of course, ain’t going to be easy. In fact, there will always be some kind of discrepancy. And this is important to understand because without a discrepancy there is no motivation to grow and develop yourself over time.

However, if this discrepancy is too significant between the YOU of today and the YOU you desire to become in the future, then your self-concept will never bloom into its full potential. There must, therefore, be congruence, or otherwise, self-actualization is impossible.

With this in mind, take time to answer the following questions:

Who am I?

Who am I really?

Who am I physically?

Who am I socially?

Who am I emotionally?

Who am I spiritually?

Who am I in terms of my accomplishments?

Who am I in terms of my failures and mistakes?

Who am I in terms of my goals?

Who am I in terms of my social roles?

Who am I really? Why?

Who am I not? Why not?

The purpose of these questions is to identify how you see yourself in the present moment and then compare that against the final set of questions laid out below. The final set of questions focuses on what kind of person you’re seeking to become.

As you go through each question, you will gain various insights and perspectives into who you are. And that’s perfectly okay. Embrace these differences, because this is in essence how you see yourself each day.

It’s also important to note that there are no incorrect answers. Things are the way they are.

What’s most relevant here is whether or not these answers are congruent with the answers you give to the following set of questions:

Who am I ideally seeking to become?

How do I see myself in the future?

What kind of person is this person? What’s this person like?

What kinds of qualities does this person have?

How does this person think?

How does this person talk to themselves?

What kind of questions does this person ask themselves?

What kind of emotions does this person experience?

What kind of habits does this person indulge in?

What experiences does this person have each day?

What kind of goals is this person working towards?

What kind of person is this person really?

Your ideal self must be congruent with your perceived self in the present moment.

If there is a significant difference between the two, then you must work on bridging that gap — thereby strengthening your self-concept.

Let’s now take a closer look at that gap. Ask yourself:

What’s the gap between my perceived self and my ideal self?

Where is the gap most significant?

Where is the gap not so significant?

Is the distance between the gap realistic?

How could I begin bridging this gap starting today?

Your objective for the remainder of this journey is to begin bridging that gap between your ideal self and the self you are experiencing at this very moment.

The more congruent both of these “selves” are, the stronger and healthier your self-concept will become.

Before moving on, I do have a few words of caution.

Your self-ideal must be realistic and achievable. Otherwise, you will struggle to meet your highest standards of performance. Subsequently, your self-concept will continue to suffer.

The key then is to ensure that your self-ideal is not entirely out of this world — at least not at the beginning.

Given this, be sure to lower your standards and expectations to make them more achievable. Only when you reach these set standards and expectations should you incrementally raise the bar higher.

Remember though that your self-image is often not based on reality. It’s instead based on your interpretation of reality.

Therefore, if your self-image is based on false assumptions or distorted perspectives, then you will first need to work through these issues before moving through the process outlined here.

Our discussion here is more about using this process to help build your self-confidence so that you can then take the necessary action steps to achieve your desired goals and objectives.

Time to Make Some Key Changes to Improve Your Self-Concept

Below you will find numerous suggestions and guidelines to help you transform your self-concept. Some of these suggestions are easy and quick to implement, while others might take a little time.

What’s, however, crucial here is what you focus on while making these changes. This essentially comes down to three fundamental things:

No matter how you proceed, every particular change you desire to make comes down to just these three fundamental things.

Therefore, no matter what ideas you decide to implement, be sure to always keep in mind how these changes can be made in relation to your thoughts, self-talk, and the belief systems that govern your subconscious behavior.

All this will hopefully start making more sense as you work your way through the following ideas.

Transform Your Inner World

Your first objective is to look within and become very consciously aware of your daily thoughts, self-talk, belief systems, psychological rules, and the questions you tend to ask. Ask yourself:

Are my thoughts aligned with my self-image?

What kind of thoughts do I allow myself to dwell upon?

What are these thoughts doing to me?

How do these thoughts make me feel?

What about my self-talk?

How do I tend to talk to myself?

What questions do I tend to ask myself?

What are the consequences of my self-talk and the questions I ask myself?

What do I tend to believe about myself?

What do I tend to believe about my abilities?

Is this congruent with my self-ideal?

How does all this make me feel?

What about the rules that govern my day-to-day decisions?

How do these rules influence my daily undertakings?

Are all these things congruent with my self-ideal?

How can I make the necessary adjustments to match my self-image with my self-ideal?

Your objective is to reach congruence in these areas. Your self-image will never directly align with your self-ideal. However, you can certainly make the necessary adjustments to your mindset to move in the right direction.

To assist you with this transition process, it’s necessary to give yourself time for meditation and visualization.

Meditation will help clear the clutter in your brain. It will encourage you to think and act more mindfully throughout the day. This will subsequently improve your ability to make effective decisions.

Visualization, on the other hand, can provide you with the necessary vision you need to better understand your future direction. This will likewise help you lay down a much clearer path toward your desired outcomes.

Remember, that how you think about things has a lot to do with your perceptions and interpretations of reality.

For instance, interpreting things one way will give you access to a particular set of resources and opportunities. However, interpreting things another way will provide you with access to a different set of resources and opportunities. Ironically, it might even deny you access altogether.

It’s therefore paramount to keep in mind that how you frame and/or reframe your experiences essentially determines what you gain or lose from those experiences.

Therefore, when problems arise, it’s not what happens to you, but how you interpret what happens that makes all the difference.

Transform Your Physiology

When it comes to our physiology, it’s important to remind ourselves that the body and mind are intrinsically connected.

What this essentially means is that how you think and how you emotionalize your experience influences how you use your physiology. Likewise, how you use your physiology influences how you think and emotionalize your experiences. They are both interconnected, and therefore what you do to one directly influences the other.

With that in mind, have a think about your body and how you use it throughout the day. Do you move your body with confidence, or do you tend to move it sluggishly? What about your breath and posture? What’s that like?

By making small adjustments to your physiology, you will indirectly influence your inner world. And as your inner world changes you will begin bridging the gap between where you are today and your ideal self.

Improve Your Lifestyle Choices

When it comes to your lifestyle, you need to start making some better choices that will help move you toward your ideal self. Ask yourself:

What kind of life does my ideal self live?

How often does my ideal self exercise?

What kind of food does my ideal self eat?

In what kind of environment does my ideal self spend the majority of time?

What does my ideal self spend time on?

How does my ideal self tend to work? Where? On what?

What kind of lifestyle choices does my ideal self make?

How can I begin bridging the lifestyle gap between where I am today and my ideal self of tomorrow?

As you go through these questions, you will get a strong sense of the changes you might need to make to bridge the gap between where you are today and your ideal self.

Above all else, keep reminding yourself that it’s all about reaching a state of congruence where your current self (self-image) matches your future self (self-ideal) on as many levels as possible.

Strengthen Your Self-Confidence

When you have an unhealthy self-concept, you will typically struggle with your self-confidence.

When you struggle with self-confidence, you’re often very susceptible to falling prey to rejection, to criticism, to judgment, and to the influence of others.

To strengthen your self-confidence, you need to explore self-love. Before you can feel confident in the external world, you must first find confidence in yourself — which that comes through self-love.

Self-love means fully accepting yourself despite your flaws, despite your weaknesses, and despite your inadequacies. It means feeling comfortable in your own skin no matter what you look like or how you feel.

To find your self-love, spend time with yourself. However, don’t just spend time watching mindless television. Actually, spend time pampering yourself. Get a massage, enjoy a hot sauna, go for a nature walk, etc.

First and foremost, the key is to reconnect with yourself. It’s only when you’ve found that connection with yourself will you then tap into your true sense of confidence.

Gain Relevant Knowledge and Skills

Your ideal self-has certain skills, knowledge, and abilities. Identify what these things are and then go to work acquiring the relevant knowledge and skills you need to help you bridge the gap between your self-image and self-ideal.

You will often find the information you need in books, by taking courses, by volunteering your time to a cause, or by connecting with people who already have the knowledge and skill you desire.

You could, for instance, get a mentor or life coach. Find someone who could guide you along your journey toward your self-ideal.

Build Your Support Network

As you work on developing your knowledge and skills, you will most certainly need support along your journey.

You will need people to help you through the tough times and struggles. You will need people that can be relied upon for emotional support. And you will need people who will accept you unconditionally without the strings.

These people must, of course, be positive, inspiring, creative, passionate, and caring. They must be giving and generous, joyful, and happy souls. These are the kinds of people that should comprise your support network.

Your support network might, for instance, be made up of friends, colleagues, family members, life coaches and/or mentors.

These people will be there to prop you up when you’re facing difficulties. They will be there to help keep you motivated, focused, and inspired as you make progress toward your ideal self.

Use your support network for guidance and direction. However, please don’t give up control of your own life by putting your destiny in other people’s hands. This will never work out well in the long-run. You must be in charge of your own choices and decisions.

To be in charge means not concerning yourself with what others think. It means not worrying about criticism or rejection. And it means not comparing yourself with others.

You are on your own unique path. These people are there to support you, but ultimately you make the final decision that determines the direction you will take.

Set Inspiring Goals

Having inspiring goals means that your life has purpose and meaning. This keeps you motivated and active.

However, you don’t just want to set random goals. You actually want to set goals that match your self-ideal. So ask yourself:

What goals is my ideal self working towards?

What purpose is my ideal self striving for?

What inspires and motivates my ideal self?

Once you have your answers to these questions, set some inspiring goals and lay down a plan of action that will help you bridge the gap between where you are today and where you ideally would like to be in the future.

Concluding Thoughts

Building a healthy and robust self-concept no doubt takes some work and consistent effort. In fact, it takes time.

This isn’t something that you can build or transform overnight. Likewise, it isn’t something that you work through once and then forget about for the rest of your life.

Transforming your self-concept is something that you need to work on consistently over time. It’s something that must continuously change and evolve as you reach new milestones along your life’s journey.

However, this journey certainly doesn’t need to be difficult. There is no need to complete this process in one go.

Take your time. Set small daily objectives, and over many weeks, months and years you will make considerable progress as you sculpt who you are and whom you desire to become.

Time to Assimilate these Concepts

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The Overcoming Limiting Beliefs IQ Matrix will introduce you to effective tools, techniques and strategies that will help you to transform your limiting beliefs in positive ways. The article delves into how our beliefs influence our lives; discusses three different types of beliefs; lays down a simple questioning process that will help you identify your limiting beliefs, and much more.

Anthony Robbins

It’s not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.

A Quick Exploration of Your Belief Systems

Beliefs are conditioned perceptions that are built upon old memories of pain and pleasure. These memories are based on how we have interpreted and emotionalized our experiences over time.

By attaching ourselves emotionally to people, events, and circumstances, we effectively build the foundations of our belief systems. These belief systems are, therefore, nothing more than psychological rules or commands to the nervous system that shapes your thoughts and filters your experience of reality. And it is these commands that influence what you will consciously delete, distort or generalize as you go about your day.

Beliefs are essentially assumptions we make about ourselves, about others, and about how we expect things to be in our world. We have all these theories, ideas, and explanations about how things are and how they ought to be. Likewise, we make all these conclusions about life and about other people, all of which help us make better sense of the world. In other words, we use beliefs as anchors that help express our understanding of the world around us.

Beliefs form the foundations of your expectations. These expectations help you to better understand yourself, to better understand others, and to better understand the world around you. They help you feel more certain about your future, which makes you feel safe and secure. As such, you hold onto these beliefs irrelevant of whether or not they serve you in the present moment, which of course all comes back to the need for certainty.

It’s important to note that beliefs are not facts. However, deeply ingrained beliefs can indeed be mistaken as facts. These beliefs are often nothing more than conclusions you have drawn based on your childhood experiences.

Back then these beliefs may have served you, and that is why you have held onto them for so long. However, as an adult, these beliefs may no longer serve a purpose. In fact, these beliefs may actually become a hindrance as they are no longer compatible with your life or circumstances. Your life has changed, however, your beliefs have remained constant, which is why you’re feeling stuck in the present.

The beliefs you hold onto are often entangled in your language patterns. Therefore, if there is a word for something, then there is probably an accompanying belief associated with that word. As such, you create your own reality through the use of language, and that traps you within a world based upon perception rather than upon fact.

How is a Belief Created?

Over a lifetime your beliefs are ingrained into your nervous system due to repeated situations that prove their legitimacy.

Throughout your life, you collect facts, evidence, and references that help you form your idea of reality. Over time, you build up more references through the use of your imagination, through the knowledge you acquire, through personal experiences, and through the influence of your peer groups. These references help you form ideas about things. Eventually, some of these ideas turn into opinions that are backed by more certainty and emotional intensity.

While holding onto these opinions, you are still quite flexible when it comes to your expectations. However, through the process of repetitively thinking and acting out these things in real life, your opinions solidify and eventually turn into beliefs. These beliefs are still flexible in the early stages, however, over time as you keep collecting more references (that support each of these beliefs), they grow stronger, more robust, and stable.

Eventually, over time you reach a certain stage in the evolution of each belief where it becomes so deeply ingrained and rooted in your nervous system that your expectations can no longer be changed. And this is in spite of overwhelming contradictory evidence (facts) that proves otherwise. And that is essentially the stage when a belief turns into a conviction.

When there are no available references to lay down the foundations for a belief, some people turn to faith. Faith is merely a belief about something that has insufficient real-world references supporting it.

You have faith because you desperately want to believe something. And when you desperately want to believe something you will ignore the facts of the situation and instead use your imagination to help you create the references you need to support that belief.

Over time you will build up more references in your imagination, and maybe even find real-world examples that help support those references. For instance, talking with people who also share your faith can help build enough references to establish a firm belief — even though those references are only based on opinion and not fact. This helps form the foundations of your faith, thereby, building a platform for the formation of a belief, and maybe eventually a conviction.

How Much Strength Does a Belief Have?

Your beliefs are at the core of who you are. As such, they influence every aspect of your life in every conceivable way. For instance, your beliefs will determine your expectations and perceptions of reality. They will influence your level of intelligence and impact the decisions you make, or the choices you fail to even realize are possible to make.

Your beliefs determine the flow of questions you tend to ask yourself throughout the day. These questions can either be helpful or unhelpful. They can help you solve problems, or they create additional problems. The questions you ask and how you ask these questions is dependent on the belief systems you hold. This likewise influences your ability to think creatively, constructively, and critically.

Beliefs also determine how you feel about yourself, how you feel about others, and how you feel about the events and circumstances of your life. Understanding how your beliefs influence your feelings is fundamental because they often disguise what’s real and instead present you with a false view of reality that only exists in your imagination. As a result, you will make choices based on this reality with an expectation of getting specific outcomes.

However, your view of reality is flawed. You are missing essential elements, and therefore no matter what decision you make you will fail to attain the outcomes you desire to realize in your life.

Beliefs will likewise determine the things you will or won’t do. They will determine what goals you will set, and more importantly, they determine how you go about accomplishing those goals. Moreover, they determine whether or not you realize you’re actually making the right choices as you work on achieving those goals.

Your beliefs essentially influence 95 percent of the decisions you make and the actions you take. They form the foundations of your self-concept, which determines how you see yourself in relation to the world around you. The labels you give yourself, the limitations you put on yourself, and the expectations you have of yourself are all built upon your belief systems. And if your belief systems are not aligned with the goals and objectives you would like to accomplish, then you will often feel stuck, unfulfilled, and miserable.

What Types of Beliefs do we Have?

There are many different classifications of beliefs that we could discuss here. There are for instance cultural beliefs, beliefs that embody your attitude, beliefs that express your willpower, unconscious beliefs, etc. These are all interesting areas to look at, however, for the purpose of this discussion we want to explore the underlying beliefs that are at the core of your belief systems. These are the only beliefs that matter because they form the foundations of all other beliefs that you hold dear to your heart.

Beliefs can be broken down into three very distinct parts. They include:

Psychological Rules

Global Beliefs

Convictions

Let’s explore each of these in a little detail.

What are Psychological Rules?

Psychological rules form the foundations of each of your beliefs. They probably shouldn’t be classified as beliefs, but rather as rules that support your beliefs. However, it’s important to discuss them here because they will help you to better understand the beliefs that are currently directing your decisions and actions.

You believe something because you have a certain set of rules that tell you that this “something” makes sense and is accurate. Therefore, if the rule makes sense, then it only makes sense to believe that what you’re seeing and experiencing is the truth.

Psychological rules often stem from the pain and pleasure response. Let’s say for instance that you come across a specific situation. Your brain will ask whether making a certain decision or taking a particular action will result in pain or pleasure. You then either decide to take action that helps you avoid pain, or to gain pleasure. Whatever you choose to do provides you with insight into the underlying hidden belief that is at the core of that particular psychological rule.

Say for instance you have a sales call you want to make to a potentially lucrative client. Making this call seems daunting and will be difficult. However, you know that if you can secure this client that you could possibly generate some excellent revenue. You, therefore, look at this situation and see two possible options.

You can either make this call, or you can instead procrastinate and put it off until tomorrow. The first option brings you pain, and the second option provides you with some pleasure and temporary relief. You now think to yourself:

If I do this what will happen?

If I do this, then what will happen with that?

Let’s say that you choose to keep putting things off until tomorrow and, therefore, decide to procrastinate and instead focus your attention on other matters. All this is very significant because your psychological rules dictated the decision you would make in this situation. And what’s even more significant is that behind this decision there lies a hidden and potentially limiting belief. That belief could be that:

“I am not good enough to do this…”

“I don’t deserve to be successful…”

“I am a failure…”

Therefore your rules might be:

“I should never do anything I’m not capable of doing…”

“I must never take a risk that is beyond my ability…”

As a result of one or more of these beliefs, you have subsequently chosen to procrastinate instead of taking the necessary steps to secure this account.

What’s significant about this is that your psychological rules influenced the decision you ended up making. In other words, your perception and interpretation of what gives you pain and pleasure affected the end outcome. Your rules prioritized short-term pleasure over long-term pleasure, and this directed you to avoid short-term pain even though that short-term pain could potentially bring you long-lasting pleasure (if you secured the account).

There’s a lot more that could be said about psychological rules. However, this hopefully provides you with enough of an understanding to get a sense of how they integrate into your belief systems.

What are Global Beliefs?

Global beliefs are generalizations you make about things, about people, and about life. You will, for instance, believe X and you won’t believe Y. You believe X because you have made specific assumptions about X and Y that make them out to be a certain way.

Global beliefs are assumptions you make that begin with:

“I am…”

“Life is…”

“People are…”

These are things you don’t give much thought to. You merely accept them as being the truth, and you don’t even question that things could be any different. For instance, the sky looks blue, so, therefore, it must be blue. This is based on the assumption that something seems blue and therefore is blue in all cases. But of course, we know that isn’t true.

Another assumption you might be making is that all people lie and can’t be trusted. This may be true in some social circles, but it’s probably not true across the board.

This global belief that people can’t be trusted might have been ingrained into your psyche from a young age, and now as an adult, you don’t even consider other possibilities. It’s true for you, and that is all that matters.

This belief might very well have served you when you were a child. Not talking to strangers and not trusting people kept you out of danger. However, does this global belief serve you today? What opportunities does it deny you in the present moment?

Many times you are probably not even aware of the assumptions you have chosen that form the basis of your reality. It’s the way you were raised, and that’s all that matters. However, is it helpful to assume these things and to hold such global beliefs? If they don’t serve you any longer, then they might actually be hindering you in the present moment.

What are Convictions?

Convictions are the strongest beliefs and are often immune to logic. They are beliefs that have the highest unwavering certainty, commitment, and dedication.

Convictions are beliefs that you have built over a lifetime that have a tremendous amount of references supporting them. Each of these references supports this belief and build the foundations of your conviction. Moreover, the amount of emotion, time, energy, and thought you have invested in these beliefs over a lifetime makes them virtually indestructible.

This is, of course, good news and bad news depending on the convictions you hold. If for instance, you have a set of strong convictions that support your goals and the success you would like to achieve, then you are on the right track. That is in essence how high achievers find the motivation they need to keep going when facing adversity.

If on the other hand, you have a set of convictions that are in conflict with the goals you would like to achieve, then you will likely sabotage yourself and end up making very little progress.

The biggest problem with convictions is that you probably don’t even realize you have them. You are so stuck in your own habitual patterns that it’s almost impossible to imagine other alternate possibilities. However, this is an obstacle that you will need to overcome if you desire to unlock your full potential.

How to Identify Your Limiting Beliefs

To achieve your goals, you will need to align certain fundamental psychological principles. Your goals must, of course, align with your life’s purpose, with the six human needs, with your core values, with your self-concept, and they must also align with your belief systems. However, that is probably where things break down for most people, and it’s inevitably one of the main reasons why hopes and dreams never manifest into real and tangible results.

There are just too many limiting beliefs that prevent us from moving forward, and that is why we continue to indulge in self-sabotaging behavior.

Given all this, your very first step to transforming your limiting beliefs comes down to identifying your limiting beliefs. However, this process isn’t always simple or straightforward. It will take a little insight and understanding to figure out what these beliefs are and how they are preventing you from moving forward.

Let’s now explore this process in a little detail.

Firstly You Must Figure Out What You Want

Your first step is to figure out what it is you want. These are your goals, objectives and the outcomes you would like to achieve. These are the things you’ve been working toward for weeks, months, and even years, but for one reason or another they are things you’ve been unable to achieve.

You’re being held back because you probably have a set of limiting beliefs that are sabotaging your progress. However, at this stage, let’s not worry about these beliefs. Right now, the most important thing is to clarify what it is you want. Ask yourself:

What is it that I want?

What goals would I like to achieve?

What kind of person would I like to become?

Why do I want all these things? What are the benefits?

The more reasons you find to pursue something, the higher motivation you will have to follow through with your actions. And to change, you must find the motivation needed to make this change. For this very reason, it’s vital that you spend time figuring out exactly WHY you want these goals and the benefits you will derive from achieving them.

Identify Your Limiting Beliefs

Before moving on, it’s important to remind yourself that all beliefs are neutral. You might for instance share a belief with another person. This belief might work for you in your situation, however, it might not work for the other person in their situation. Likewise, a certain belief might work for you in one situation but not in another situation. It, therefore, depends on the situation and on the person holding that belief.

As such, it’s important to keep in mind how useful a belief “is” in your particular situation — concerning the goal that you are trying to achieve. If it serves you and supports the goal you are working toward, then keep it. However, if it doesn’t serve you and hinders your progress, then this is a clear indication that you are dealing with a limiting belief.

Your limiting beliefs often hide beyond conscious awareness. However, there are key signals you can look out for that will provide you with the clues you need to identify these limiting beliefs. These key signals will be evident when you confront obstacles and challenges along your journey toward your goals.

You typically won’t be able to overcome obstacles and problems because of the limiting beliefs that are occupying the space between your ears. For instance, your limiting beliefs can potentially manifest in the following ways:

Take all of these things into consideration and list down all the limiting beliefs that come to mind as you work toward your goals. And yes, even “thinking” about your goals applies.

You might, for instance, be thinking about achieving a particular goal, and while thinking about it you get a sense of resistance boiling up to the surface. The more internal resistance you experience, the more limiting beliefs are laying dormant just below the surface of conscious awareness.

For instance, you might have a goal to earn an extra $20,000 this financial year. However, as you’re thinking about this goal, you start to feel a little uncertain and uncomfortable. This is precisely where you will find your limiting beliefs. These are the beliefs you need to bring into conscious awareness. You can do so by asking yourself the following questions:

What resistance am I feeling inside while I think about achieving this goal?

Do I have any values that are in conflict with my goals? What do I believe about these values?

How am I labeling myself and/or describing myself as I work toward this goal? How could this be causing problems?

What stories do I tell myself about what I should or shouldn’t be doing, and about what should or shouldn’t happen? How is this of significance?

Having taken the time to reflect on these questions, it’s now important that you specify correctly what kind of limiting beliefs are currently holding you back. Ask yourself:

What insights do the answers to these questions provide about my limiting beliefs?

What specific limiting beliefs are holding me back right now?

How are these limiting beliefs preventing me from achieving my desired goals and objectives?

How are these limiting beliefs denying me the opportunity to become the person I want to be?

Remember that your limiting beliefs are assumptions you make about reality that aren’t true in your particular situation. They aren’t helpful, and they certainly don’t serve you or the goals you want to achieve.

Understanding the Formation of Your Limiting Beliefs

Before moving on, it might also be helpful to identify how these limiting beliefs found their way into your life. Ask yourself:

How did I come to form this particular limiting belief?

What has made me hold onto this belief for so long?

Understanding how these beliefs came into existence can help you work through them more effectively. Just maybe, these beliefs are linked to childhood memories and experiences that no longer serve your greater good. Unlocking these memories can help you to let go of specific experiences, and maybe, even forgive certain people that did you wrong. And possibly, you might also find the courage to forgive yourself.

Another reason why it’s important to search for the origins of your limiting beliefs is that every belief you hold onto has a set of references that support it. And by understanding the origins of this belief you put yourself in a prime position to pinpoint the various references that have been feeding this belief. To help you with this identification process, ask yourself:

What kind of references support this limiting belief?

What knowledge supports this belief?

What life experiences support this belief?

What intense emotional experiences support this belief?

How have I held onto this belief in my imagination over the years?

What specific things have I imagined? What stories have I concocted?

Many of these references may very well have been concocted in your own imagination. And therefore, they don’t have any real basis in reality. Other references may be based on false knowledge or assumptions.

Then there might be some references that may actually be based on real-life experiences, however, over time the brain has a tendency to distort past experiences to protect you from the truth (pain). Therefore, what you now think happened, may not have happened the way you imagine it today. For this reason, it might be worthwhile spending some time digging into these experiences to unlock the truth behind your limiting beliefs.

Letting Go of Your Limiting Beliefs

It’s important to mention that each of your limiting beliefs serves a purpose. They are there because they protect you from something. This “something” often manifests as a form of pain.

Now, of course, this doesn’t mean that the belief makes any sense at all, or that it’s practical in the present moment. What it does mean is that each of your limiting beliefs has good intentions, and these intentions are there to protect you from pain. However, frequently, when it comes to limiting beliefs these intentions can be misguided. They might protect you from short-term pain, which unfortunately often leads to long-term pain.

Moving forward it’s critical to determine what you are gaining by holding onto each of your limiting beliefs. Ask yourself:

How am I deriving pleasure by holding onto this limiting belief?

What good intention does this belief provide me with?

What value am I gaining by holding onto this belief?

To replace your limiting belief with a more empowering belief, you will need to convince yourself that the value you’re deriving from this limiting belief isn’t required any longer. Otherwise, your new empowering belief must in some way fill this void. Therefore, you either fill this void or eliminate the void altogether. The choice is yours to make.

Preparing Yourself for Change

The emotional intensity of each of your limiting beliefs can be measured using submodalities.

Submodalities are ways in which you interpret and then represent your world using your five senses. It’s all about how you visualize things, how you hear things, and how you feel things internally.

The limiting beliefs that are most difficult to overcome are supported by very vivid and emotionally intense submodalities.

Let’s say for instance that your goal is to become an airplane pilot. However, you have this nagging fear of heights. This is apparently a huge obstacle that will prevent you from reaching your goal.

The main reason you’re afraid is that you exaggerate things in your mind to such an extent that it scares you. Everything becomes visually and kinesthetically intense when you think about heights. And that is the main reason why this fear is prevalent in your life.

There’s, of course, a supporting limiting belief that’s attached to this fear which tells you that “heights are dangerous.” This might or might not be true. However, because you believe it, it’s, therefore, true for you.

Given this, take one of your limiting beliefs and ask yourself:

How do I picture this limiting belief in my head?

How do I imagine it in my minds-eye?

What does this limiting belief look like specifically?

What does it sound like?

What does it feel like?

What does it smell like?

What does it taste like?

One way to make this belief less intense is to adjust the submodalities you use while thinking about this fear.

Instead of picturing this scary scenario in your head about the dangers of heights, try instead toning things down a little and distancing yourself from your fear using your imagination. That way the intensity of your limiting belief (manifesting as fear) is reduced, and as a result, you will be in a better place emotionally to overcome this mental roadblock.

Before Moving Forward…

Before moving on, it’s important to note that some of your limiting beliefs may, in fact, have some basis in reality. These beliefs are not based on assumptions but instead upon facts. If they are based on facts, then you will need to treat these beliefs as “problems” that must be solved. They are in essence the physical obstacles that you must circumvent to clear the path to your goals.

Okay, there’s just one more thing you need to do before you start creating a set of empowering beliefs that are congruent with the goals you would like to achieve. That one thing requires that you convince yourself of the following three things:

“Responsibility for change rests in my hands…”

“Change happens instantly when I’m committed…”

“Things must change now…”

Only and when you accept these three beliefs as being your truth, should you begin working through the belief transformation process.

How to Transform Your Limiting Beliefs

You should by now have identified all the limiting beliefs that are holding you back in life. And this is unfortunately where most people stop. They think that having an awareness of their limiting beliefs will now encourage them to think differently about their lives and circumstances. And there is undoubtedly some truth to this.

Being aware of your beliefs will indeed encourage you to think differently about them. However, your limiting beliefs have the support of many references. A significant amount of these references probably have a lot of emotional investment behind them, which is where the problems lie.

You can’t just go through this process and hope that you will change your mind. Whenever you have a high level of emotion invested in something it creates a barrier to change. You will need to cut your ties, and this will require some work. In fact, the deeper the belief and/or conviction, the more difficult this process is going to be and the longer it will take.

As you work through this belief transformation process it’s important you remain observant and curious. You must be open to the possibilities, you must welcome new perspectives, and you must accept alternate viewpoints.

Being receptive and willing to adapt to changing conditions and circumstances lies at the cornerstone of any change that you would like to make. This is especially true when it comes to transforming your limiting beliefs.

Step 1: Choose Your Desired Outcome

Your very first step is to choose your desired outcome. This will help you gain clarity about what it is you would like to change. Ask yourself:

What goals would I like to achieve?

What’s currently preventing me from achieving these goals?

What kind of person would l ideally like to become?

What is it specifically that I would like to change?

What specific beliefs are not working for me?

What beliefs are preventing me from achieving my desired outcomes?

Once you are clear about the limiting beliefs that are holding you back, you can move to step two of this process.

Step 2: Question Your Limiting Beliefs

Your limiting beliefs are only as strong as the references that support them. And, often your limiting beliefs probably have a plethora of references that influence your perspective on reality.

It’s important to keep in mind that these references were only once ideas, that became opinions, and later came together to form your beliefs. As such, they aren’t real. They are of course real for you, but that’s only your perspective. Change your perspective and opinion about them, and you will likewise throw doubt on your limiting beliefs.

And that is precisely what you’re going to do right now. You are going to throw doubt upon these beliefs from all possible angles.

Here are some questions to get you started on this process. This list will hopefully get you going, but you should certainly add your own questions as you move through this process.

Throw doubt on your limiting belief by asking yourself:

Is this belief really that accurate?

Have I always believed this? Why?

Was there a time when I didn’t believe this? Why?

Are there times in some situations when this belief just doesn’t make any rational sense?

What evidence is there that disproves this limiting belief?

What’s the exact opposite way of thinking about this belief? How is this helpful?

What’s funny about this belief? What’s strange about this belief? What’s embarrassing about this belief?

Is this belief helping me get what I want most in life? Will it help me reach my goals?

How would others question the validity of this belief? How would they think about it?

How does the opposite of what I believe work for other people? How is this of value?

What famous quotes throw doubt upon this limiting belief?

What are the critical flaws in believing what I believe? How is it silly to think this way?

How would I think about this belief if I was Albert Einstein? Bugs Bunny? Harry Potter? A child? An entrepreneur? A rock? An elephant? An ant?

Some of these questions might seem silly and strange. However, they are designed to help you expand your perspective and the possibilities of your situation.

These questions are designed to encourage you to think outside the box. They are designed to make you feel a little uncomfortable, and they are, of course, designed to help shift how you think about your limiting belief.

The more effort you put into answering these questions, the more doubt you will throw on your limiting belief, and the faster you will move through this belief transformation process.

Step 3: Consider the Consequences of Your Limiting Beliefs

Having thrown doubt on your limiting belief, it’s now time to consider the consequences of holding onto this belief. Really have a good long, and hard think about the following questions:

What will the consequences be if I’m unable to make this change and eliminate this limiting belief?

How will not changing affect me physically? Emotionally? Spiritually? Financially? In my relationships with others?

How will not changing affect my life?

What are the short-term consequences of not changing?

What are the potential long-term consequences of not making this change?

How will all this make me feel?

Given all this, why is it important to make this change right now?

The more pain you can associate with holding onto this belief, the more motivation you will have to make a positive change in your life.

For this reason, it’s paramount that you move through these questions progressively one at a time and fully experience the pain passing through all your sensory organs.

Feel the anger, experience the grief, think about the regrets, and even allow yourself to cry. The more pain you generate, the more motivation you will have to change.

Step 4: Choose a New Empowering Belief to Adopt

You must now choose a new empowering belief that you would like to use moving forward.

The one guiding principle that you must follow here is to make sure that this new belief is believable. If it’s not believable, then you will, unfortunately, fail to condition it into your psyche.

To unlock this new empowering belief, take into consideration the goal that you would like to achieve, the person that you would want to become, and the core values you would like to uphold, then ask yourself the following set of questions from a third person’s perspective:

What would this person likely believe while in pursuit of this goal?

What would this person believe about themselves?

What would this person believe about their goal?

What’s their attitude like? How do they think about this goal?

What would this person believe after having achieved their goal?

How would they think about the obstacles they confront along their journey?

What would they believe if they had to achieve this goal again for a second time?

Now, consider the advantages of this belief and how it could potentially help improve your life and circumstances. Ask yourself:

What are the benefits of using this new belief?

How will this new belief help me to attain my goals?

How will this belief change my life for the better?

How will this belief help me in the short-term and in the long-term?

How will all this make me feel about myself?

To what extent is this belief likely to empower me moving forward?

Why is all this important? What does all this really mean?

The more reasons you can find, the more motivation you will have to change your old patterns of behavior and replace them with new empowering belief systems.

Step 5: Strengthen Your New Empowering Belief

Now, let’s look at ways you can potentially strengthen this new empowering belief.

Strengthening a belief requires taking into consideration ways you could build upon the references that support this new belief. Ask yourself:

What kinds of behaviors, decisions and actions could help me strengthen this belief?

What habits and/or rituals could help me strengthen this belief?

What famous quotes could potentially help me strengthen this belief?

Are there any symbols I could use that might help me strengthen this belief?

Could I create a slogan for myself that might help me strengthen this belief?

Are there any stories that support the philosophy behind this new empowering belief?

What about role models? Are there any role models I could turn to that could help me strengthen this belief?

There are many ideas here that will help you strengthen your new belief. One of the most practical ideas involves simply finding a handful of quotes that support the philosophy behind your new empowering belief.

Write these quotes down on a piece of paper and keep them in your pocket. Then, whenever you feel yourself indulging in your old limiting belief, take some time to read over these quotes. This will help you get back on track. It’s as easy as that. And what’s more, each time you read these quotes you build stronger references that will help support your new empowering belief moving forward.

Likewise keep an eye out for stories, documentaries, and films that support the philosophy behind your empowering belief. Keep them listed on that sheet of paper as well, then turn to these stories for some added insight, direction, and inspiration.

Working through the belief transformation process comes down to building solid references that help support your new empowering belief. The more references you are able to collect, the stronger your new belief will become, and this will subsequently weaken your old limiting belief.

Just keep building the evidence against your limiting belief and in favor of your empowering belief. Once the evidence begins to overwhelmingly support your empowering belief, that is when the tables will turn, and your mindset will permanently shift.

Step 6: Make a Firm Decision About What to Change

You must now make a firm decision that you will begin making the necessary changes to overcome your limiting belief.

Go through each of these questions and rank them from 1 to 10. If you’re not at least at an 8 out of 10 on all three questions, then go back to the previous steps and work through them again.

Don’t proceed unless you have reached an eight or above. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your time, and you will continue to sabotage yourself when facing adversity.

Step 7: Progressively Condition Your New Belief

Having committed yourself to this new empowering belief, it’s now time to progressively condition this new belief into your nervous system. And there are some ways you can do this.

First of all, you can use the process of visualization to help condition this new belief into your nervous system. Just spend time daily visualizing yourself in your imagination using this new way of thinking in your day-to-day undertakings. Take note of the actions you take, the decisions you make, how you talk to yourself, how you speak to others, etc. Think about your new attitude and the results that this new belief is helping you to manifest in your life.

You are in essence imagining a new and better you in your minds-eye and then transferring the “new you” from your imagination into the physical world.

Everything first begins in your imagination and then gets transferred across into the real world. Doing things this way will help you to develop the self-confidence you need to work with this new belief.

Secondly, you can use the process of anchoring to condition this new belief into your nervous system. This primarily involves anchoring a physical sensation to your body that will automatically allow you to get into an optimal state-of-mind that is congruent with your new empowering belief.

Thirdly, you can condition this new belief into your nervous system by making some helpful adjustments to your submodalities. These modifications can help add more emotional firepower to your new belief. This will increase the strength of the references that help support this belief.

Next, you can use a technique known as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). This method works for some people but may not work for all people. It involves tapping on end points of the body’s energy meridians. This tapping process can help you overcome your limiting beliefs and habits.

Finally, you might want to consider modeling or emulating other people who are actively living this empowering belief. Get to know these people and find out what makes them tick.

But what if these people are just not accessible? Then learn all you can about them from books, documentaries, films, interviews, etc. Find out why they do what they do, and also how they do it. Then emulate them and model their decisions and actions. This will hopefully help you build even more references that support your new belief.

In the end, what’s most important is reminding yourself about the value of this new belief and how it will help improve your life moving forward.

Step 8: Make Room for this New Belief in Your Life

It’s time now to make the necessary changes to your values, environment, thoughts, language patterns, life, etc. Everything must align to support your new empowering belief.

If incongruities exist, or conflicts are still present, then you will probably find it difficult to adopt this new belief. For this very reason, you must make the necessary changes to allow for a successful transition. Ask yourself:

Is this new belief congruent and consistent with my values? Do any changes need to be made?

How must my thoughts and perspectives change to match this new belief?

Do I need to develop some new habits and/or rituals that will help support this new belief?

How must I change my environment to match this new belief?

Are there any other aspects of my life that need adjusting in order to integrate this new belief successfully into my life?

When it comes to altering your language patterns, you might like to use scripted affirmations throughout your day. These affirmations will help you to stay on track. Affirmations such as:

I can do this… I believe in myself…

I am strong, confident and capable…

I will find a way to make this work…

Alternatively, you can turn these affirmations into questions. Questions are more powerful than affirmations because they focus your mind on solutions and on taking the necessary action steps to solve problems. You might, for instance, alter the above three affirmations in the following way:

How can I do this? How can I solve this problem?

What are my strengths? How can I use them to muster the self-confidence I need to get this done?

How can I make this work? What if I tried…? Who could help me make this work?

When you ask questions, you’re no longer focused on what can’t be done, but rather on the possibilities that are laid out before you. Moreover, you begin thinking proactively and taking decisive action toward your desired outcomes. Yes, you will make mistakes, but if you continue to ask proactive questions, you will quickly learn from those mistakes and make course corrections.

Step 9: Begin Using Your New Empowering Belief

Take action and get into the habit of using your new empowering belief as often as possible until it begins to feel comfortable and familiar.

You may, of course, need to get through that initial awkward stage where you feel a little discomfort and uncertainty. That’s normal. With persistence, dedication, and commitment you will get through it. Just keep moving forward.

It might be helpful to write down your new belief on a sheet of paper and carry it around with you throughout the day. Read your new belief as often as possible until it begins feeling comfortable and natural.

As you make progress along your journey, it’s important to always stay flexible in your approach and make course corrections when required.

Your new empowering belief might have made sense when you initially created it, however, as you begin to take proactive action toward the attainment of your goals, you might need to make some alternations to this belief. What worked for you initially might not work for you down the track. And if you’re not flexible in your approach then you just won’t get the long-term results you expect from this process.

It’s also very possible that as you work toward your goals, that other limiting beliefs (you didn’t previously acknowledge) might crop up.

These limiting beliefs have been lying dormant for years. They haven’t cropped up until now because you haven’t had to do anything that made you feel uncomfortable in this area of your life.

Now that you’re stepping into new territory, these limiting beliefs have been forced to the surface. Given this, it’s helpful that you come back to this limiting belief transformation process time and again until you successfully work through all the limiting beliefs that are standing between you and the attainment of your goals and objectives.

Concluding Thoughts

Overcoming our limiting beliefs ain’t easy. It takes a significant amount of work, introspection, and time. Moreover, this isn’t a once off kind of thing. You don’t just go through this process once and forget about it. It’s rather an ongoing process of steps that we must revisit time and again. We must, therefore, commit ourselves to long-term change. And our beliefs are, of course, at the core of that transformation.

Remember that the beliefs that got you to where you are today won’t get you to where you want to be tomorrow. Your beliefs must, therefore, change with the times, they must also change alongside your goals. If they don’t change, then you don’t change, and your goals will always remain out of reach.

Time to Assimilate these Concepts

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Here are three recommended IQ Matrix mind map bundles that explore how to reprogram your subconscious mind, how to make no excuses for your limiting beliefs, and how to get unstuck from unhelpful patterns of behavior.

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Gain More Knowledge…

Here are some additional links and resources that will help you learn more about this topic:

The Six Human Needs IQ Matrix breaks down six of the most important and fundamental building blocks that shape and mold our personalities each and every day of our lives. The article analyzes the intricacies of the four classes of behavior; breaks down the purpose and the behaviors associated with the six human needs; shows you how to positively transform your behavior, and more.

Author Unknown

Sometimes in the short-term we must forsake our needs in order to obtain our dreams.

How Your Behavior Shapes Your World

Every day you make certain decisions and take concrete actions that come about as a result of how you think, feel, and the habits you indulge in. Most of the time you probably don’t give these decisions or actions a second thought. You perhaps don’t even question why you do what you do. And that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that.

We tend to filter out the detail of our lives to focus on what’s most important. However, there are certain advantages to knowing — to understanding what motivated you to take a specific action or make a crucial decision. And that is where the Six Human Needs come into the picture.

The Six Human Needs are not desires. They are psychological NEEDS that we consistently work on satisfying on both a conscious and unconscious level of awareness.

These Six Human Needs influence your deepest motivations and determine how you go about prioritizing your decisions and actions throughout your life. In fact, every single day you are unconsciously striving to meet these “needs” with varying levels of success.

When these needs are met at a high level, you experience incredible happiness, joy, and fulfillment. On the other hand, when these needs are not met at a satisfactory level, you tend to feel unfulfilled and dissatisfied. However, because most of this happens on an unconscious level of awareness, you probably don’t even realize why you’re feeling miserable.

On the surface, your life seems okay, however, below the surface you have this nagging feeling of dissatisfaction. Nothing you do seems to make you happy, and life just seems dull and dreary. Little do you realize that it all has to do with your Six Human Needs.

So what are these Six Human Needs? Well, let’s take a very quick look at them right now before exploring them detail.

The Need for Certainty: Here you are striving to experience comfort and gain a level of certainty in your life. This helps you minimize both stresses of uncertainty.

The Need for Uncertainty: Here you are striving for a little variety and uncertainty in your life. This helps you relieve boredom, predictability, and stagnation.

The Need for Significance: Here you are striving to gain a sense of significance and importance in other people’s eyes. Your objective is to create a sense of identity.

The Need for Connection: Here you are striving to make deep connections with people. You have a need to belong, to love, and to be loved by others.

The Need for Growth: Here you are striving to learn, experience, and grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in a variety of ways throughout your life.

The Need for Contribution: Here you are striving to contribute to something greater than yourself. This is all about adding value to other people’s lives.

Before breaking down each of the Six Human Needs, it’s essential that we first explore the four classes of behavior and how they influence our lives.

What are the Four Classes of Behavior?

The habits you partake in, the actions you take, the emotions you experience, and the addictions you indulge in can all be classified into four distinct classes or kinds of behavior.

Understanding these four classes of behavior is critical as they will help you gather valuable insights into your motivations and your psychological tendencies. No longer will you be at the mercy of your choices and decisions. Instead, you will fully understand and come to appreciate the short and long-term consequences that are tied to your daily actions.

It’s important to note that every decision you make and behavior you indulge stems from the pain and pleasure principle. This principle states that you will make decisions based on the avoidance of pain or on the promise of pleasure.

The pain and pleasure principle has a push-pull effect. On the one hand, you are making decisions that push you away from the negative consequences that might cause you pain. On the other hand, you are making decisions that will pull you toward outcomes that will help you experience pleasure. This might seem straightforward on the surface. However, it does get a little more complicated.

Say for instance you have a big project due for completion in four weeks. Four weeks seems like a long enough time to complete this project, right? You, therefore, don’t worry about it and instead make a decision to socialize, watch some movies, binge-watch television, etc. All of these things (behaviors and choices) are pleasurable experiences. More specifically, they are instant gratification traps.

At the same time, working on the project seems somewhat painful and challenging. You, therefore, make a decision to avoid the pain (of working on the project) to experience the short-term pleasure of the moment.

Over the next three weeks, you continue to avoid the pain of completing the project and instead choose to indulge in pleasurable activities. However, the closer you get to the deadline, the more on-edge you begin to feel. It appears as though the pain of not getting the project done is now growing more significant and intense.

All of a sudden, the pleasure you experienced socializing, watching movies, etc., is no longer a reliable enough motivator. Now, it’s the pain of not completing the project on time that weighs heavily on your mind. You are, therefore, no longer motivated by short-term pleasure but rather by the long-term pain you will experience if you do not get this project completed.

Given all this, you finally make a decision to begin working on your project.

This example shows how, frequently, we’re motivated to make a particular decision or to indulge in a specific behavior due to the “pull-effect” of short-term pleasure. However, at other times, we make decisions based on the “push-effect” of long-term pain.

All this is quite significant because your response to short and long-term pain and pleasure will determine the outcomes you will inevitably experience throughout your life.

To understand this principle in further detail, we’ll need to take a look at each of the four classes of behavior. However, before we begin, it’s helpful that as you read through each of these classes of behavior, that you pinpoint what kind of habits and rituals you partake in that fall into each category.

Class 1 Behavior

Class 1 behavior is typically characterized by actions that concurrently lead to both short and long-term pleasure. These behaviors:

Feel good.

Are good for you.

Are good for others.

Serve the greater good.

Self-sacrifice and the act of giving love to another person both fall into a class 1 behavior type.

There is no pain associated with this kind of behavior. Instead, you are rewarded with short and long-term pleasure as a result of your actions. The behavior, therefore, feels good, is good for you, is good for others (because you are helping add value to their life), and it serves the greater good of all concerned.

This is primarily where we would typically want to spend most of our time, however, unfortunately, life doesn’t always work that way. We are not living in a utopian society. As such, we will need to also work through the remaining three classes of behavior.

Class 2 Behavior

Class 2 behavior is typically characterized by short-term pain leading to long-term pleasure. These behaviors:

Don’t feel good.

Are good for you.

Are good for others.

Serve the greater good.

Working hard on a project with the intention of gaining long-term rewards is an example of a class 2 behavior. Also, exercise is another example of a class 2 behavior. When you exercise you experience short-term pain, however, the exercise seems worthwhile because you will inevitably encounter long-term pleasure resulting in weight-loss, a higher level of fitness, toner body, etc.

Class 2 behavior doesn’t feel good in the short-term. In fact, you will experience a lot of pain. However, the pain is always worthwhile because it serves the greater good and helps you gain long-term pleasure. It’s, therefore, good for you (at least in the long-run). It’s also good for others because it doesn’t hurt them directly, and it serves the greater good of all concerned.

Class 3 Behavior

Class 3 behavior is typically characterized byshort-term pleasure that often results in long-term pain. This is self-sabotaging behavior that:

Feels good.

Isn’t good for you.

Isn’t good for others.

Does not serve the greater good.

Overeating, binge drinking, excessive television, and procrastination all fall under this category of behavior. All these things feel good and pleasurable in the short-run, however, they all have painful long-term consequences that you will inevitably experience at some point in the future.

When you’re overeating, you are seeking to gain short-term pleasure. However, overeating can make you feel sick, can lead to weight gain, and possibly result in future health concerns. This behavior might feel good, however, it’s certainly not good for you, not good for others, and does not serve the greater good.

In the future, you will experience so much pain that overeating in the present moment just won’t seem worthwhile. You were seduced by short-term pleasure, and now you must suffer the consequences of long-term pain.

Class 4 Behavior

Class 4 behavior is typically characterized by short and long-term pain. This is a self-sabotaging behavior that:

Doesn’t feel good.

Isn’t good for you.

Isn’t good for others.

Does not serve the greater good.

The emotions of stress, worry, and anger are all typical examples that fall into this category. Staying in a bad relationship or career are two decisions that also reflect this class of behavior.

All of these examples do not feel good, they are not good for you, they are not good for others, and they certainly don’t serve the greater good of all concerned.

Indulging in a class 4 behavior means that you’re choosing to experience short-term pain in order to experience even more long-term pain in the future. Does that even make any sense?

For example, when you’re angry, you are hurting yourself by losing your temper. Not only does this put you on-edge emotionally, but it can also damage your relationships and health. In this example, you are choosing short-term pain to subsequently experience more pain in the future. This obviously doesn’t make any rational sense. However, it’s a typical class of behavior that we tend to indulge in more times than we care to admit.

So What Does All This Mean?

So what does all this mean moving forward?

In isolation, without taking the Six Human Needs into consideration, these four classes of behavior provide you with key insights into your decision-making process. Instead of just making decisions unconsciously, you can now choose what to do or focus on based on the consequences of the pain and pleasure principle.

The right thing to do is to always make decisions that lead to Class 1 and Class 2 behaviors. These behaviors will typically lead to long-term pleasure. On the other hand, it’s important to avoid the traps of a Class 3 behaviors. This kind of behavior feels good on the surface (short-term pleasure), however, the long-term consequences are rarely if ever pleasurable (long-term pain).

Likewise, it’s important to be aware of the consequences of a Class 4 behaviors. This is often characterized by unconscious emotional responses, habits, and behaviors that catch us off guard. You will recognize these experiences because they just don’t feel good and eventually lead to painful consequences.

So, how does all this integrate with the Six Human Needs?

The Six Human Needs are built upon your motivations. These motivations influence the decisions you make and, therefore, lead to certain and specific behaviors that you tend to indulge in. Some of these behaviors will be categorized as Class 1 and 2 behaviors, and others will be characterized as Class 3 and 4 behaviors. Therefore, some of them will be good for you, while others will only tend to cause you pain.

In the end, the whole purpose of this process is to help you transform your behavior in optimal ways to help you find more happiness and fulfillment in life. And this all begins with an understanding of your Six Human Needs.

Breaking Down the Six Human Needs

The Six Human Needs were initially introduced by Anthony Robbins. Mr. Robbins had always been fascinated with human motivation and behavior. As a result, he studied Neural Linguistic Programming, Cognitive Therapy, Gestalt Therapy and many other therapies of the time. However, even after all his research and the effort, he put into this work, he was still missing a piece of the puzzle. That piece of the puzzle came in the form of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs certainly filled a void by exploring:

Physiological Needs

Safety Needs

Love and Belonging Needs

Esteem Needs

Self-Actualization

Maslow’s pyramid of needs shows how our needs typically change as we move up the hierarchy. For instance, we first have our physiological needs on the bottom of the hierarchy. These are needs for breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, excretion, etc. These needs must be met first before we can move up the pyramid and satisfy the remaining needs.

Once our physiological needs are satisfied, we can move onto safety needs. These are needs for security of the self, of the family, of property, of health, employment, etc.

Once these needs are fulfilled, we then move onto the need for love and belonging where we seek to connect with other people through friendship, family, and sexual intimacy.

Finally, at the top of the pyramid is the need for self-actualization. Here we typically strive for self-improvement and creative self-expression. This is in essence all about personal growth and our contribution to the world.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs was undoubtedly a profound discovery. However, Mr. Robbins felt that it was missing something. It didn’t quite help explain why we do what we do. It failed to unlock our decision-making process that leads to the behaviors we tend to indulge in each day. As such, Mr. Robbins took some elements from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and pieced them together with a few of his own discoveries and came up with the formula for the Six Human Needs.

Let’s now delve into the underlying motivating forces of our decisions and actions by taking a closer look at the Six Human Needs.

The Need for Certainty

The need for certainty means that you are continually striving to feel safe and secure. You value predictability and a sense of comfort. This gives you peace-of-mind and helps ward off stress, anxiety, and worry.

This need for certainty is often characterized by the need to acquire short-term pleasure irrelevant of whether it will lead to long-term pain (Class 3 behavior). This is where your comfort zone lies, and this is, therefore, the place you feel most secure and safe.

When you strive to satisfy the need for certainty, you might eat or drink alcohol excessively. You might smoke or use recreational drugs. Likewise, you might procrastinate or attempt to control other people.

All these behaviors provide you with a sense of certainty and comfort in the present moment, but they could also potentially lead to pain in the long-run.

The same is true when you’re clinging to a bad relationship or a lousy career. You hold onto these things because it gives you a sense of certainty. However, this is a Class 4 behavior. It doesn’t feel good, it’s not good for you, it’s not good for others, and it certainly doesn’t serve the greater good. So why do you hold onto these things? You hold onto them because they make you feel safe, secure, and comfortable.

The need for certainty, of course, doesn’t have to end with negative consequences. Sometimes, certainty is necessary because it provides you with emotional stability and financial security. Who really wants to deal with problems when you can instead feel certain that tomorrow will be just like today?

Isn’t this why we watch movies for the second time? Watching a movie, again and again, helps you gain a sense of certainty. You know what’s coming, and so you feel comfortable in the fact that there will be no surprises. Life is certain, predictable and safe. What could ever be wrong with that?

The problem with an oversupply of certainty is that it often leads to boredom and eventually a broad sense of dissatisfaction. Life becomes too predictable and just plain dull. As a result, you now tend to seek out a little uncertainty to help add that extra spice to your life.

The Need for Uncertainty

The need for uncertainty means that you are constantly striving for variety and change. Certainty is fantastic. However, variety just makes life a lot more interesting, unpredictable, challenging and fun.

In your search for uncertainty, you might choose to play competitive sports, decide to take risks or to even gamble your life away.

You might purposefully want to confront your fears, to make some drastic life changes, to handle a crisis or deal with conflict. If you’re currently experiencing conflict, then it could very well be due to your need for uncertainty.

Your need for uncertainty could be so strong that you’re purposefully looking for high-stress crisis situations that create discomfort. This, of course, might seem silly on the surface. However, the alternative is a very predictable, safe, secure, and dreary existence.

In the short-term, chasing uncertainty might work well for you. Although in the long-run it’s important to realize that you’re indulging in Class 4 behavior that doesn’t feel good and may also result in long-term pain.

All behavior is, however, not created equal. You can, of course, satisfy your need for uncertainty in productive ways that are akin to Class 2 behavior.

For instance, you might satisfy your need for uncertainty by taking risks that move you toward a goal. These risks don’t feel good, however, they are good for you, good for others, and serve the greater good. In the long-run, the short-term pain will most likely lead to long-term pleasure. Moreover, making strides to push yourself outside your comfort zone will certainly pay dividends in the future.

As with anything that is good, an oversupply of a good thing is always riddled with consequences. And an oversupply of uncertainty can often lead to higher levels of stress, worry, overwhelm, frustration, and fear. This can very quickly get out of control. And as a result, you immediately turn to certainty for comfort, predictability, and security. And so the cycle goes on, as you jump from one need to the next in succession. How quickly, or how far you jump will, of course, depend on how you prioritize each of your needs.

The Need for Significance

The need for significance means that you are continually striving to feel important, special, unique, and worthy. You have all these goals you would like to achieve, so many incredible skills you would like to develop, and a worthy status you would like to pursue. All this provides you with significance and a sense of accomplishment.

You gain significance — when in comparison to others — you reach a stage where you feel more important and worthy. You can feel more significant by achieving something, by building something, by learning something or even by tearing other people down. They are all legitimate ways to fulfill the need for significance.

The need for significance can help you achieve more, do more, and become the person you desire to be. All professional athletes would probably admit that the need for significance is a big part of their careers. In fact, it’s probably one of the most important influential factors that go into every decision they make.

On the other hand, the need for significance can be used for evil purposes. For instance, it can be used to hurt people or gain an unfair advantage. Take for example a bully. A bully bullies other people to feel important, significant, and worthy. Therefore the need for significance can actually lead to violence. And the sad thing is that this is a Class 3 behavior. It feels good and leads to short-term pleasure, however, it’s certainly not good for you, not good for others, and doesn’t serve the greater good.

When everything is said and done, we must all come to accept the fact that we live in a world alongside other people. Society is built upon relationships, connection, mutual respect, and love. This is important because too much significance can potentially lead to separation anxiety and loneliness. This is evident in the celebrity world where well-known celebrities suffer from bouts of depression. They struggle with depression because they fail to meet their need for connection at a high enough level.

The Need for Connection

The need for connection means that you are continually striving to connect and build strong social bonds and relationships with other people. This is the main reason why we get married, why we attend church gatherings, why we spend time in nature, why we gather at clubs, and why some people choose to join gangs. It’s all because of a need to feel connected to other people in some way.

No longer do we want to feel significant. Instead, it’s the connections with other people that help us move away from bouts of depression and loneliness. However, ironically, the deeper we connect with others, the more susceptible we are to falling prey to criticism and rejection. But there’s more…

When you put love and connection above all other human needs, you might often do it at the expense of adventure and variety. Say for instance you find your soul mate, you get married, and because you value connection above all else, you no longer take risks, you no longer play sports, and you no longer pursue adventure. All of a sudden your priority levels have shifted, and you no longer seek uncertainty. Instead, you might now value connection and, maybe, even certainty above all else.

Now, consider how an oversupply of the need for connection can lead to a loss of identity. With this loss comes the need to feel important, unique, and worthy once again. And as such, your relationships with other people start to break apart.

The Need for Growth

The need for growth means that you are continually striving to learn new skills, to gather knowledge, and to grow as a person.

You have this picture of yourself in the future — of how you desire to be. And your need for growth is pushing you to reach for that ideal self.

When the need for growth is at it’s highest, you are continuously striving to grow emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially and intellectually. As a result, you might learn a new skill, you might choose to read a book, you might take a class, etc.

Growth is a crucial aspect of life. If you’re not growing, then you’re making no real progress in life. However, growth isn’t necessarily about learning a new skill or about reading a good book. It’s more about the time you put into self-reflection. Moreover, it’s about the mindful approach you take to understanding the consequences of your daily decisions, choices, and actions.

The need for growth isn’t a primary need. What this means is that it’s not a need that all people across all walks of life strive to fulfill. However, it’s an important need nevertheless, because without growth there is a sense of lack — a sense of dissatisfaction.

Without growth, your life may even feel as though it’s stagnating. On the surface, you may be fulfilling the four primary needs. You’re comfortable, you experience some uncertainty, you feel significant, and you also satisfy your need for connection. However, you’re not growing and evolving on a psychological level. As a result, you feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled, and yet you don’t know why. You seem to have a perfect life, but there’s just something missing.

The same is true of the final human need. You might have all the other human needs satisfied at the highest level. However, life will always be missing that extra little something that this need gives you.

The Need for Contribution

The need for contribution means that you are living out your life’s purpose and providing value to other people that go well beyond your own needs, desires, and wants. You are primarily living for a higher purpose — for something greater than yourself that can potentially last a lifetime, and beyond.

The need for contribution stems from our need to share ourselves, to help other people, and to add value to their lives. It’s all about making a difference to individuals, to the community, to society, and to the world in general. This, of course, doesn’t mean that all of us will significantly change the world. However, what it does mean is that we work on something that gives life more significant meaning and purpose.

So whether your acts of kindness help change one life or many lives, makes no difference. It’s all about the intention behind the work that matters.

To satisfy the need for contribution, you might volunteer your time to a cause, to a charity, or to a community project. Alternatively, you might fulfill this need by helping someone solve a problem or, maybe, by teaching a class at a local community center. It really doesn’t matter what you do, as long as what you do provides you with a sense of fulfillment that you are doing something greater than yourself.

Contribution is a Class 1 behavior. It feels good, it’s good for you, it’s good for others, and it certainly serves the greater good of all concerned. This type of behavior provides you with short-term pleasure while at the same time rewarding you with long-term pleasure. It’s the best of both worlds, and it’s something we should all be striving for.

How to Balance and Prioritize Your Six Human Needs

To make the Six Human Needs work for you, you must first identify whether or not your current actions, choices, and decisions are aligned with how you would like to prioritize them. Ask yourself:

Based on my current life circumstances, how should I prioritize my needs?

Do I value certainty over uncertainty? Why? Why not?

Do I value significance over connection? Why? Why not?

Do I value connection over certainty? Why? Why not?

Do I value certainty over significance? Why? Why not?

What kind of choices and decisions am I currently making?

How do these choices and decisions reflect how I subconsciously prioritize my needs?

Are my current choices and decisions in conflict with how I would like to prioritize my needs? What specific problems might be evident?

Am I experiencing enough growth in my life? If not, then how could I focus on satisfying this need to a higher degree in the future?

Is there enough room in my life to explore the need for contribution? How?

How you live your life and what you choose to do each day depends entirely on how you prioritize each of these Six Human Needs.

If you prioritize the need for uncertainty over the need for certainty, then you will be naturally inclined to take more risks, to seek out new experiences, and to switch jobs more often than the average person.

If on the other hand, you prioritize the need for certainty over the need for uncertainty, then you will most likely have a more stable career, and you will tend not to step too far out of the norm. In such instances, you’re happy to keep things predictable. You will only take occasional risks when you feel a little bored. Now, ask yourself:

Are the current choices and decisions I’m making aligned with how I would like to live my life?

For example, if the need for uncertainty, variety, and adventure is of highest priority, then sticking to your mundane job and postponing your trip around the world is probably making you feel sick to the stomach. In this instance, your needs are in conflict with your actions. You will never be satisfied, happy and/or fulfilled living this way. You must, therefore, re-prioritize your choices and decisions following your highest priority needs.

In another example, imagine you meet a fantastic person that you would potentially like to spend the rest of your life with. However, this person’s highest need is the need for certainty. However, your highest priority need is the need for uncertainty. As you can tell, there will most likely be some conflict here unless the two of you can reach some kind of compromise. If you don’t, then at the very least the need for connection must supersede all other needs. Otherwise, this relationship will probably fizzle out in the long-run.

In the end, a fulfilling, prosperous, and happy life comes down to reaching a healthy balance between each of your six human needs.

You need a little certainly to provide you with some stability, and you also need a little uncertainty to provide you with a spice of adventure and variety. At the same time, you need to feel significant and important to strengthen your personal identity. However, you also need that connection with other people.

Growth is likewise essential and so is contribution. In fact, all the Six Human Needs are important. They might not be equally important all of the time, however, they are important when it comes to reaching a balance that feels good, is good for you, is good for others, and also serves the greater good.

Using the Six Human Needs to Transform Your Behavior

Let’s now come full circle and look at ways you can use all this information to help transform your behavior.

Let’s say, for instance, that you spend a significant amount of your time indulging in Class 3 and 4 behaviors. You do, however, have a few conflicting needs, which are causing some problems. Whatever these problems may be, let’s see if we can work through them using a set of carefully phrased questions.

However, before we get into these questions, let’s take a quick look at other ways you can transform your behavior.

Behavior Transformation Strategies

There are plenty of ways you can transform your behavior. For instance, you can do some pain and pleasure work. This basically means purposefully manipulating how you view pain and pleasure with an objective to help motivate you to take specific kinds of actions.

You might, for instance, associate a great deal of long-term pain to the consequences of indulging in a specific kind of behavior. At the same time, associate both short and long-term pleasure to a behavior that you would like to condition into a habit.

Other methods you could use to transform your behavior come in the form of language and thought patterns. This works well because how you think and talk about things affects the decisions you inevitably make. And the decisions you make influence the behavior you indulge in. Therefore, by altering your thoughts and language patterns will encourage you to make a different set of choices. And as a result of these choices, you will begin changing your behavior.

Your beliefs, your core values, and your physiology also influence the choices you make and the behaviors you indulge in. Therefore, by changing your core values and beliefs about yourself, about others, and about the circumstances of your life, will help transform how you respond and behave in each situation. Moreover, making simple adjustments to your physiology can also instantly transform how you think and the behaviors you tend to indulge in.

Finally, asking better questions can also help transform your behavior. The questions you ask each day are an extension of your thoughts and self-talk. However, questions are very specific and are directed at finding solutions to problems. And yet, most of the time we ask feeble questions that often aggravate our problems.

Instead of asking questions that get you nowhere, begin asking questions that help you find solutions to the problematic behaviors you are working through. And this is precisely what we’re going to do shortly as we work through the behavior transformation questioning process.

Set Some Clear Concrete Goals for Your Life

Before jumping into the questioning process, it’s vital that you first gain clarity about the goals you would like to work towards.

Now, this isn’t a traditional goal-setting exercise. It’s not about setting specific goals about what you would like to acquire, the money you would like to earn, the people you would like to help, etc. This is more about the feelings you would want to experience by achieving those other more tangible goals on your list.

When it comes to your human needs, it’s important that you set goals that are built upon the foundations of motivation, fulfillment, happiness, and balance. In fact, all the behaviors that you partake in should primarily be of a Class 1 type of behavior that feels good, is good for you, is good for others, and serves the greater good. In addition to this, all the behaviors you indulge in each day should satisfy the Six Human Needs at the highest possible level.

Now, this isn’t going to be easy. In fact, this goal is probably going to be next-to-impossible to achieve. However, pursuing stretch goals is a requirement for long-term happiness and fulfillment. For more about goal setting, please see how to set smart goals.

The Behavior Transformation Questioning Process

As you begin this questioning process, have a think about each of the Six Human Needs. Specifically, have a think about how you will transform your current behavior to meet each of these needs at the highest possible level. Ask yourself:

How do I currently go about achieving (specific human need) in my life right now?

Identify how you go about achieving the need for certainty, uncertainty, significance, connection, growth, and contribution. Also, have a think about how certain behaviors could be in conflict with other behaviors. Then ask yourself:

What makes me take these actions or partake in these specific behaviors?

How does partaking in these behaviors make me feel?

Is partaking in these behaviors empowering me or hurting me?

What benefits am I deriving from each of these behaviors?

From a scale of 1 to 10, at what level do each of these behaviors satisfy each of my six human needs?

What class of behavior do each of my behaviors fall into?

Reflecting on each of the behaviors, have a think about how you could potentially transform and adjust them in a way that ensures they fall into a Class 1 or 2 behavior category. Continue asking yourself:

How could I transform this behavior in a way that ensures that it meets my Six Human Needs at the highest possible level?

How could I transform this behavior in a way that will move it from a Class 3 or 4 behavior to a Class 1 or 2 behavior?

If I can’t transform this behavior, then do I really want to continue indulging in it?

What’s an alternate behavior I could potentially adopt that will satisfy all the Six Human Needs at the highest possible level?

Is this behavior a Class 1 or 2 behavior? If not, then think of another behavior…

It will not always be possible to find a Class 1 or 2 behavior that meets all Six Human Needs at a high level. And that’s perfectly okay. If the behavior doesn’t satisfy all the Six Human Needs, but it satisfies most of the needs at a high enough level, then go with it. Over time you can adjust this behavior to eventually meet all your needs.

Concluding Thoughts

When it comes to working with your Six Human Needs, it’s important to understand that this isn’t a quick “one-and-done” process. It’s rather a lifetime commitment.

As your life changes, you need to commit yourself to consistently making adjustments to your behavior. These behaviors must satisfy your Six Human Needs at the highest possible of levels. Moreover, they must fall under the Class 1 or 2 behavior category.

Class 1 behaviors are certainly not easy to achieve. However, through trial and error, you will make progress. And as you make progress your life will improve because you’ll be making better decisions, which will lead to more helpful and productive behaviors that will result in more happiness and fulfillment. And that, in essence, is the key to success, and the key to living an optimal life.

There’s literally so much that could be discussed here. In fact, an entire book could be written about this subject. This short discussion certainly doesn’t do this topic justice. However, I hope that it has provided you with some insights that you can work with to help balance and re-prioritize your life in optimal ways.

Time to Assimilate these Concepts

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